TORONTO – Tuesday night has been a long time coming for Michael Saunders. After a freak knee injury sidelined him for most of the 2015 season, the Toronto Blue Jays outfielder watched his team take on the Texas Rangers and Kansas City Royals in last year’s post-season from the bench. He was a cheerleader; moral support; along for the ride.
But while he supported his teammates and offered what help he could without actually taking the field, the reality of having to watch games he desperately wanted to play in ate at him inside. It wasn’t easy. And come Tuesday, he hopes to finally scratch the itch that’s been bothering him for the last 12 months.
“It’s awesome for all of us to be here, but I think tomorrow will be pretty special and pretty unique for me personally,” Saunders said on Monday after taking part in his team’s optional workout at Rogers Centre. “To actually get to play a part in the playoffs this year is going to be really meaningful for me. It’s something I’m not going to take for granted. And I wouldn’t want to be doing it with any other team than this one.”
Saunders was born in Victoria, B.C., and grew up cheering for the Blue Jays. He was just seven years old when Joe Carter hit the home run everyone remembers and now, at 29, he’s been a part of the first two Blue Jays teams to make it back to the post-season since then.
He got a taste of what a playoff atmosphere at Rogers Centre is like last season, and actually got ejected from Game 5 of the ALDS vs. the Rangers for arguing with umpires from the bench during the emotional, turbulent, astonishing seventh inning that turned the series on its head.
Assuming he’s in the starting lineup Tuesday night – a decent bet considering his strong numbers against Baltimore Orioles starter Chris Tillman – Saunders will now face the challenge of quelling all those emotions while trying to execute on the field.
“You’re going to be in the box seeing all the white towels waving and the fans going nuts. It’s one of those things where you just try to take a step back and not get too amped up,” Saunders said. “You just try to calm your heartbeat a little bit when you’re up there. I know everyone is pretty jacked up for the game tomorrow. It should be a lot of fun.”
So, about those numbers against Tillman. Saunders is 6-for-21 against him in his career, with a double, a pair of home runs and a .967 OPS. He faced Tillman less than a week ago, working a deep count in his first plate appearance before shooting a single to left field to move a runner over to third and set up a Kevin Pillar sacrifice fly.
“I’ve got a pretty good familiarity with his stuff. I’ve faced him a lot over the course of my career and it’s nice to have faced him so recently as well,” Saunders said. “He’s a good pitcher. It just boils down to the simplicity of trying to get a good pitch to hit and putting a good swing on it.”
That last part has been a struggle for Saunders at times in the second half of the season. After earning an all-star selection for his torrential first half, which saw him go into the mid-season break batting .298/.372/.551 with 16 homers and 25 doubles, Saunders slowed considerably over the season’s final months.
Since the all-star game, Saunders is batting .178/.282/.357 with eight long balls. His groundball rate has spiked from 37.4 per cent in the first half to 46.7 in the second. His line-drive rate fell accordingly from 25.2 per cent to 17.5, despite the fact Saunders made a comparable amount of medium and hard contact over the season’s two halves. It’s been a puzzling slump for both Saunders and his team, and its resulted in decreased playing time as Ezequiel Carrera and Melvin Upton Jr., have eaten into the Canadian’s at-bats.
But Saunders says he’s been feeling much better at the plate recently, especially this past weekend in Boston where he drew a pair of crucial walks in Toronto’s 4-3 victory on Saturday. The second free pass came in the ninth inning of that game against Boston Red Sox closer Craig Kimbrel, and eventually became the winning run as pinch runner Dalton Pompey moved up 90 feet at a time before scoring on a sacrifice fly.
“I’ve gone through my ups and downs for sure, but more than anything I’m feeling comfortable and confident in the box. That’s all I can ask,” Saunders said. “I feel like I’m starting to put good swings on balls and put together some good at-bats. The way I look at it is I’m getting right at the right time.
“I’m trying to always be in that yes mode; to always be aggressive until the ball dictates for you to say no and hold off,” Saunders continued. “In Boston I thought like I was seeing the ball a lot better, and I’m really happy about that. I’m looking to bring that into this game tomorrow.”
A productive Saunders would certainly be a post-season boon for the Blue Jays who struggled significantly to score runs over the final month of the season, finishing dead last in baseball with just 106 runs scored over their final 29 games – which amounts to 3.7 runs per night.
Of course, the Orioles had their own struggles to score runs over that span, averaging just 4.1 runs per game during their final month. To that point, Saunders thinks Tuesday’s game will come down to whichever pitching staff can put up a more dominant night and whichever collection of hitters can tap into its potential to ignite.
“You’re going to have two high-octane offences that can explode at any second,” Saunders aid. “So, I think really what it’s going to come down to is the better pitcher will win tomorrow. And hopefully it’s our guy.”
