Jays enjoy taste of freedom at Fenway
Top prospect Pearson has tough first inning, but team seems glad to be out of isolation
A young pitching wonder-whiz on the mound making his (quasi) debut in a major-league ballpark — and fabled Fenway at that.
First time the Blue Jays had faced an enemy opponent since March 12.
Sprung from the bubble of their Rogers Centre hub, which had manager Charlie Montoyo happily running along the Charles River. “Seeing daylight. It was beautiful.” But still taking pandemic precautions, using his keys to press the hotel elevator button.
Players walking to the ballpark just because they could. Surrounded by people, strangers. “That’s the real world, what it’s all about,” said Randal Grichuk. “They’re free.”
It’s not normal, far from it. But an approximation of the baseball life as Toronto squared up against the Boston Red Sox on Tuesday evening for the first of a pair.
Thirty-eight travelling Jays spilling out from the cramped visitors clubhouse into the concourse to assure physical distancing. “This is one of the places I was concerned about because the clubhouse is so small,” Montoyo admitted on a pre-game Zoom scrum. “We’re all spread out in the concourse where they sell beer and stuff. There’s lockers. There’s a weight room on top.”
No beer for sale, actually, because no fans are allowed as stadiums will remain all but deserted when the regular season launches on Friday. By which time the Jays will be in St. Pete’s — Florida still ravaged by COVID-19 — for their opener against the Rays.
The Red Sox extended their own clubhouse to the luxury suites, with portable showers added. It’s all about adapting and reconfiguring and making the best out of a lousy situation. For the vagabond Jays, they were just thrilled to be playing a real game in a real yard, even if nobody knows where they’ll be next week following a fivegame road swing in this 60game sprint of a season.
“It’s great timing before we go to Tampa and the start of the season,” said Montoyo of a team that had played only intrasquad games for the past 21⁄ 2 weeks at the Rogers Centre, since arriving from Dunedin, no road teams allowed to penetrate their sanitary cocoon. Where, unless there’s a screeching U-turn by the federal government, the Jays won’t be seen again in 2020.
In Boston, the public is welcome to amble along the street outside Fenway, turned into a pedestrian zone with patio dining, bars showing the game on giant screens. We’ll have no such mass congregating in Toronto for the purpose of watching baseball.
On this night — the penultimate exhibition game for the Jays, broadcast on TV, play-byplay on radio — fans were at least able to fill their eyes with Nate Pearson, who may or may not be on the roster come the real games, depending on whether the organization manipulates his service time by relegating him to the minors (which don’t actually exist at the moment) for a week and a half to gain another year of contract control.
What the six-foot-six righthander showed was quite un-Nate-like in his final audition for a starter gig out of the gate. His signature heat was certainly evident, although he didn’t hit triple-digit velocity. Gave up his first hit of spring/ summer camp and his first home run, digging a 4-0 hole in the opening frame which, as per mutual agreement between managers, was shut down with two out as Pearson reached his inning pitch limit.
Got leadoff hitter Andrew Benintendi, who corkscrewed onto his knee on the whiffing strikeout. But then six balls in a row — which had Pearson shaking his head when catcher Danny Jansen came out to the mound for a chat — a brace of singles and a three-run bomb by Mitch Moreland.
Pearson settled down, though just 36 strikes on 63 pitches over 32⁄ 3 innings before Montoyo lifted him for Jordan Romano with Toronto trailing 4-2.
In what was entirely too dramatic a finish for an exhibition game, the Jays flexed their firepower stuff — Derek Fisher’s second bomb of the night in the top of the ninth, a two-run go-ahead shot. Rafael Dolis closed out the come-frombehind 8-6 win.
“I knew it was going to be my first time ever throwing at Fenway,” Pearson said afterwards. “That alone is a bunch of nerves. Obviously my nerves got the best of me in the first inning.”
Not the way Pearson imagined it, but it didn’t change anyone’s opinion of the top-rated righthanded prospect in baseball.
“Obviously if you throw 100, everything’s going to fall into course,” Grichuk has said earlier of the marquee rookie. “He’s got it all.”
The skipper remains ziplipped about Pearson’s immediate future and clearly the decision isn’t his to make with top-heavy executive management. But Montoyo claimed not to be worried that his pitching ornament will get all bent out of shape if his genuine MLB inauguration is postponed. “He’s special, calm and collected, just do what he does.”
Not to bang on about it, but Toronto’s ballers are still legitimately perplexed by the logistical uncertainty surrounding their home whereabouts. Among big-league shared parks in the mix are Pittsburgh and Baltimore. Anything would be preferable to using their minorleague field in Buffalo, the woebegone option.
“Most of the guys don’t want to play in a triple-A ballpark,” said Grichuk. “That’s going to be a weird concept to wrap your head around. If we have to go there, we’ll go there, obviously. But we’d love to be in a bigleague ballpark.”
Any minor-league alternative would not be up to MLB standards, denying the Jays the amenities they’d otherwise enjoy to prepare and recover from games.
“It’s going to be messed up all around,’’ Grichuk continued. “That would go into the mix of making it together. That’s something we’ve got to roll with this year.”
In any event, there was the sheer pleasure of being let off a tight leash, the severely restrictive rules players had been coping with in Toronto. The on-the-road code of conduct is less strangling.
“We’re leaving it up to the guys,” Grichuk explained. “Obviously nobody on this team is dumb enough to go out to a bar.
“If you think it’s probably not a smart thing to do, then don’t do it.”