Winning seems to come easy to happy Blue Jays
NEW YORK • Back in May, the previous time Chad Jenkins was a Blue Jay, he knew all of his teammates. On Friday, after receiving an unexpected summons to Yankee Stadium, he had to roam through the clubhouse and introduce himself.
Among the new teammates he met was fellow reliever LaTroy Hawkins, who was wearing a plush blue bathrobe, fashioned after his uniform, with his name and number on the back. David Price — new Jay, ace pitcher and social convener — had ordered robes for everybody on the club.
When Jenkins was with the club briefly in May, the Jays were a .500 team. Upon his return, they were 19 games over .500, sitting atop the standings by 1.5 games and set for a showdown with the Yankees to try to stay there.
Jenkins spent most of the season at Triple-A Buffalo, but he has pitched in 45 games over the past four years with the Jays. Besides the new faces he encountered, he noticed another difference when he walked into the clubhouse.
“It’s a lot livelier this year,” he said. “I’ve noticed that for sure. There’s a lot more joking around going on. Everybody’s looser.”
Manager John Gibbons has been talking about that for much of the season, and did again on Friday afternoon, before the rain-delayed and highly hyped four-game series unfolded in the Bronx.
Gibbons has been around, enjoying some teams, enduring others. He enjoys this one because it’s winning, and be- cause he says, over and over, that these players genuinely like each other.
“There’s something different about this group,” he said. “Where that takes us, who knows? But there’s definitely something different out there.
“It’s a very focused group. You notice when a game starts with this group, they get locked in. And we’ve proven over the year they know how to battle back. They don’t cash it in, ever. I don’t think they need a whole lot of motivation.”
Which is fine with Gibbons, since he is not inclined to inspirational speeches. He has called clubhouse meetings in the past — “I’m no Knute Rockne in there, I’ll tell you that” — but says he can’t remember calling one this year.
(The only clubhouse meeting media types know about came early in the season, when the veterans called everyone together and set a daily schedule for the type of music to be played over the clubhouse sound system. Liking each other obviously has its limits.)
“I haven’t said a word to them,” Gibbons said. “I don’t think there’s a need for it. I’ve got a pretty good pulse of these guys. I’ve been around a lot of them for a few years now … (This is) a veteran-type team. A younger team, that might be different. But I have zero concerns how they’re going to respond. That doesn’t mean you play good every night, but they’re going to be ready to play.”
That has not always been the case with some of the Jays teams he has managed in his two Toronto terms.
“There’s been some teams here in the past that I’ve managed that weren’t near as focused as this group,” he said. “I think this is a special group.”
Their special qualities have triggered a startling surge for a team that embodied mediocrity for half the season. Entering Friday’s game, the Jays had a 34-14 record since the all-star break. But they had played the Yankees only six times (losing two) and had not faced a challenge akin to that which this weekend holds.
Thursday’s rainout set up a doubleheader for Saturday (when more rain is forecast), and doubleheaders can burn out bullpens. That’s why Jenkins is here and not on his couch in Atlanta, which is where he was when the Jays called.
As his team climbed into the pennant race, Gibbons has never spoken of any game or series being more important than another. In recent days, however, he has acknowledged the obvious about this battle in the Bronx.
“They are big games,” he said. “We’re neck and neck with these guys and there’s not a whole lot of games left. But I don’t approach it any different.”
Naturally, he expects the same attitude from his players when the games begin. Beforehand, however, they were behaving a little differently.
The visitors’ facilities in the new Yankee Stadium give players plenty of places to hide from snoopy reporters — suddenly, the Jays are a thing in the New York media — and they have taken full advantage. At one point before Thursday’s rainout, there were 37 media types and two players in the visitors’ clubhouse.
No doubt, they didn’t want to have to say, over and over, that they’re playing one game at a time, just as they have all year, and won’t change now.
It probably seems an ideal time to leave that message up to their manager. Gibbons patiently complies, willingly offering historic details, to every writer who asks.
There’s definitely something different out there