TORONTO — Kevin Pillar heard the crack off the bat, turned to his right, and started to sprint. Stride after stride the ball closed in. Tracking it over his left shoulder, Pillar angled his run slightly left as the 101.5-mph rocket screamed. Suddenly, the ball was right on top of him, above him, and past him, dropping quick. Pillar jumped, reached, crashed, rolled, and was back up on his feet before you could even register what just happened. The Superman theme played.
It was yet another for the canon of unbelievable, flat-out, holy-four-letter-word-did-he-actually-just-do-that catches in the decorated history of the Toronto Blue Jays centre-fielder who gets to everything. You’ll see it on your television, you’ll see it above this story, you’ll see it for some time to come. While his oeuvre of ludicrous catches is extensive, this one may have been Pillar’s finest. Top three at least.
“One of the best catches I’ve ever seen him make—even better than the one where he climbed the wall,” said Blue Jays shortstop Ryan Goins. “I mean, that was going full speed, straight back. That was unbelievable.”
“Give that guy a gold glove,” added starter Marcus Stroman. “I think he’s the best defensive centre fielder in the game.”
“It doesn’t get any better than that,” raved manager John Gibbons. “And you’ve got to factor in the magnitude of the situation, too.”
Right. Excuse us for not setting the stage. The catch came in the sixth inning of a 4-2 Blue Jays victory over Cleveland Monday evening. Stroman was confidently carrying a four-run lead, but nearing the end of his night as his pitch count climbed and Cleveland threatened.
The inning had begun rather regrettably as Steve Pearce badly misplayed a Carlos Santana fly ball in left field, overrunning the ball and letting it drop in for what was scored a double. The ball was decently struck but still had a hit probability of only eight per cent according to MLB’s StatCast, which means 92 per cent of the time it is caught. Poor luck for a pitcher. On the mound, Stroman gathered.
He got the next batter to fly out, but with his pitch count nearing 90, the Blue Jays bullpen began to stir. Stroman got a second out with a groundball, but when he walked old friend Edwin Encarnacion to put runners on the corners, Blue Jays pitching coach Pete Walker came jogging out of the dugout for a quick chat. Cleveland third baseman Jose Ramirez was coming up and no matter what happened during the ensuing plate appearance it was likely to be Stroman’s last.
Stroman started Ramirez with a ball well outside and came back with a fastball on the plate. Ramirez was all over it, scorching the pitch to deep left-centre field. But Pillar was out there, and he was hearing the crack off the bat, turning to his right, and starting to sprint.
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“It’s definitely a difficult play. The one that’s directly over you is going to be the most difficult—I was fortunate that the ball was a little off to my side,” Pillar said. “But when you leave your feet, you’ve got to be confident you’re going to make a play. Because right there, that drops, probably both runners score, [Ramirez] is probably at third base. But that’s not what I’m thinking about. I’m thinking about catching the ball.”
As the catch was completed, Stroman stood halfway between the mound and the plate, his arms held straight above his head in awe, before he bent over at the waist and took a moment to process it all. Pillar stood out there for a moment before jogging back to dugout where nearly his entire team waited for him on the field.
Pillar’s ludicrous catch saved at least two runs, which the Blue Jays ended up needing later on when Cleveland briefly rallied. It also meant the difference between a disappointing end to Stroman’s night and the scoreless outing he ended up with as he and Pillar celebrated in front of the Blue Jays dugout.
“In baseball, you’ve got to take away hits sometimes,” Gibbons said. “And we’ve got plenty of guys who can do that. What that does is it can really bail you out of some tough jams. That, most of the time, makes the difference in winning and losing.”
Making his first appearance since leaving his last start with tightness in his right armpit, Stroman lived dangerously in the early going, allowing plenty of hard contact and putting two runners on with less than two out in the second, fourth and fifth innings. But he escaped all three of those jams with double play groundballs, the trickiest coming in the fifth when Stroman snared a Roberto Perez comebacker and started the double play himself, sending a high throw to second base that Goins did well to corral and expeditiously send on its way to first.
Stroman relied plenty on his defence on this night, getting Pillar’s catch, the three double plays, and seven groundball outs total, while striking out only one over his six innings. He was living on the plate more than he’d probably like to, but he did an effective job of mixing and matching his many pitches to help keep Cleveland hitters off balance.
“I was just a little off with location,” Stroman said. “You’ve just got to bear down. Do everything you can to not frustrate yourself on what happened previously. And just to focus on that moment and that pitch. I was just able to do the job in those situations. And my defence behind me was unbelievable in turning those double plays.”
Meanwhile, Cleveland starter Trevor Bauer had his own struggles with location, pitching almost entirely out of the zone or up in it, something the Blue Jays aggressively looked to take advantage of.
They got to Bauer in the second inning when, with two outs, two strikes, and Devon Travis on second base, Goins crushed an elevated fastball 439-feet into the second deck of right field seats for an early two-run lead. And they got two more in the third, when a Pillar walk (an event that is happening with more frequency this year than last, it’s worth noting) and a well-struck Kendrys Morales double put two in scoring position for Justin Smoak, who served a soft single into right field to plate both runners.
That four-run lead held until the eighth, when Cleveland got two back on a bizarre, controversial play. It started when Blue Jays reliever Danny Barnes put two runners in scoring position with none out thanks to a Perez walk and a Santana double. Blue Jays manager John Gibbons then brought in Joe Smith to face Francisco Lindor, who lined an 0-2 slider on the plate into right field to score a run.
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Lindor took an aggressive turn around first and got himself caught in a rundown, urging Santana to score from third as he danced around in no man’s land trying to elude Blue Jays infielders. Santana eventually made his break for the plate, which is about when Travis made what can only be described as the most marginal of contact with Lindor as he tried to help execute the rundown.
Santana was safe at home and Lindor was awarded second base due to interference by umpire Vic Carapazza who has what one might call a decorated history of questionable judgment during games involving the Toronto Blue Jays. That brought Gibbons charging out of the dugout to protest the decision and, ultimately, get ejected. Blue Jays bench coach DeMarlo Hale then took up the argument with home plate umpire Mark Ripperger after Gibbons was tossed.
“I know the rule. You get obstruction if there’s contact made. I’ve never seen an umpire call that without some kind of contact being made,” Gibbons said. “[Carapazza] told me [Travis] didn’t bump [Lindor,] he just hindered his progress. I was like, ‘OK, that may be the rule. But I’ve been around a while and I’ve never seen it without some kind of contact.’ So, that was my argument. That and his smug smile.”
Undeterred, Smith rallied against the heart of Cleveland’s order with Lindor in scoring position, getting Jason Kipnis to ground out weakly before striking out Encarnacion and Ramirez, both at the end of pesky, eight-pitch at-bats. That set things up for Roberto Osuna to make his third appearance in the last four days, and notch his fifth save of the season while protecting the two runs Pillar ran down in left-centre field.
“I just went out there to make a play,” Pillar said, wearing a red, white, and blue Superman toque, plus matching shirt with the sleeves, of course, cut off. “We’re playing shorthanded right now. Wins are tough to come by. And we’re just trying to go out there and play hard. That’s what you’re seeing from everyone who’s getting an opportunity to play. We know we’re shorthanded. But with the guys we’re missing, we’re just going to go out there and play hard and try to make stuff happen.”
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