BOUNCING BACK
Hit into a triple play one day, bang out four hits the next. That’s baseball, says Kevin Pillar,
The beleaguered but still battling Blue Jays may not be playing for a post-season berth, and they may find themselves experimenting with lineups and seeking someone that can close games over the final 20 games, but they continue to play hard and do what is required at any moment to win.
Take Saturday’s starting pitcher, left-hander Brett Anderson, in a 5-4 win over the Tigers. Picked off the scrap heap by the Jays in August, he is auditioning for the role of Mark Buehrle-lite, working on a potential free-agent contract with the Jays for 2018. Anderson pitched six innings, allowing just two first-inning runs, on a homer by Miguel Cabrera, and giving up five hits with no walks and three strikeouts.
It’s no coincidence when someone works as quickly as he does, he tends to benefit from good defence. He’s getting comfortable, even if the audition may lead him elsewhere.
“I’m not the most vocal guy ever and so I can sit back and make my own judgments and reservations,” Anderson said. “It seems like a good group, some characters, that’s for sure. Sit back and watch those guys work, it’s fun.” Are the Jays still competing? Centre fielder Kevin Pillar crashed into the wall in centre to haul in a Dixon Machado line drive in he fifth inning, then homered into the Jays’ bullpen leading off the sixth to give his team the lead. He collected four hits in the game. He has 15 homers and 14 steals. The last Jays player to record 15 homers and 15 steals in a season was Vernon Wells in 2009.
After grounding into a triple play and making six outs Friday, Pillar might have been forgiven for changing his walkup tune to Bob Marley’s “Redemption Song.”
“I wouldn’t necessarily say it was a comeback, but in that moment (Friday) it was maybe an all-time low,” Pillar said. “A guy that can run a little bit never envisioned myself hitting into a triple play. Four atbats, you make (six) outs, it’s a pretty rough day. The great thing about baseball you come back and do it again and that’s why I don’t get overwhelmed, too excited about today. It’s one day.”
Manager John Gibbons, with the Jays trailing by a run in the fourth inning, put on the first-and-third trick play to tie the game, with Teoscar Hernandez taking off for second base with two outs, drawing a throw and getting in a rundown while the lumbering Kendrys Morales raced — in a relative sense — home from third base.
“The double steal, you betcha,” Gibbons grinned when asked about whether a play was on. “Nobody in the world is expecting Kendrys, so (the catcher James McCann) throws through.”
There was a new face at the top of the Jays’ batting order. Young shortstop Richard Urena was hitting leadoff, perhaps as a reward for his performance the night before when he had stroked his first home run and made a sparkling defensive gem up the middle with a spin and a perfect throw.
“Switch hitter, put him up there, see . . . what the heck,” Gibbons said. “We’ve been looking for a leadoff hitter for a few years now.”
The Jays have already tried Pillar, Bautista, Steve Pearce, Ezequiel Carrera, Devon Travis, Nori Aoki and Teoscar Hernandez in that spot this season. Of that group, Travis the closest to being a legitimate leadoff man but he’s on the 60-day disabled list.
Travis was back in the home clubhouse Saturday, having flown up from Tampa and the team’s training complex along with injured catcher Russ Martin. They will continue their injury rehabs with the majorleague club but — with all of the minor-league seasons finished save the short-season Class-A Vancouver Canadians, and with the Jays having nothing but pride to play for — the odds of either man returning in the next three weeks seem slim.
The next question might be about the expectations for the switchhitting 21-year-old Urena next year. He is highly regarded as both a defender and a contact hitter, but there is no rush to award him a major-league starting position.
The Jays have a starting shortstop in Troy Tulowitzki, when healthy. He is earning $58 million, guaranteed, for the next three seasons, plus an option for a buyout. They have a backup in Ryan Goins. And they have four shortstops among the top 25 prospects in the organization: Bo Bichette (No. 2), Logan Warmoth (No. 4), Urena (No. 11) and Kevin Smith (No. 25).
If the thought is to convert Urena into a second baseman, they could do that over the course of spring training but, if Travis could ever stay healthy, he should have that position locked down, with some work to be done on the defensive side.
The Jays are also listing the highly touted Bichette as a shortstop and second baseman, so obviously they have that conversion in mind as a possibility with Tulowitzki still there.
That being said, Urena had another nice little game against the Tigers on Saturday.
He walked in his first plate appearance, stroked a hard single to right field next time up, started an impressive double play from deep in the hole in the fourth inning on a ball hit by John Hicks, then added another base hit later.