Alex Anthopoulos sat there in the Toronto Blue Jays dugout less than two days away from the start of the American League Division Series, talking about his lineup. All that power – Donaldson, Bautista, Encarnacion; that productive bottom of the order. Homers. Dingers. Jacks. Bombs.
Oh yeah, and Ben Revere.
Eventually, the Blue Jays general manager offered up a lingering post-season memory from his days as a fan. Game 7 of the 2001 World Series – Mariano Rivera in to close for the New York Yankees, and Luis Gonzalez spinning a lazy, soft liner over Derek Jeter to drive in the winning run for the Arizona Diamondbacks. The ball almost lingered in the air, tantalizingly, as a press-box full of reporters hit the “delete” button.
“When you get to the post-season, normally you are facing front-of-the-rotation guys – guys with a lot of swing-and-miss stuff – and when you can combine the ability to put the ball in play with some speed – choppers, bloopers, bleeders,” Anthopoulos said, his voice trailing off.
He shrugged.
The Blue Jays will open their best of five ALDS Thursday afternoon at the Rogers Centre against Yovani Gallardo and the Texas Rangers and the first hitter he will face is Revere, the spritely left-fielder acquired at the trade deadline from the Philadelphia Phillies – a 27-year-old left-handed hitter who was the bow on Anthopoulos’ big gift to Blue Jays fans.
Revere hits Gallardo (6-for-17, .353) and has also drawn two walks. Small sample size, but still. Revere has 60 hits since Aug. 21, the most in baseball, and posted a .355 batting average that was second to the Miami Marlins’ Christian Yelich. If a pitch is in the zone, he will hit it – maybe not hard (‘medium contact’ is his thing) – as is demonstrated by his 96.7 per cent contact rate on pitches in the zone, second in the Majors.
Not bad for a hitter who stands at the plate looking like a guy trying to find his car keys in the supermarket parking lot while balancing three bags of groceries.
“Hand pump and a hitch,” is how Anthopoulos describes what his left-fielder does with his hands. “Normally,” he added, “not how you’d teach a guy to hit.”
Which is precisely why the Minnesota Twins kept dropping hints about it after making Revere the 28th pick overall in the 2007 draft.
“I just did it when I was younger, and I guess I had a good game or something, because I stuck with it,” said Revere, who hit .306 between Philadelphia and Toronto. “It’s just a little timing mechanism.
“When I was drafted, you know, they tried to get rid of it but then I just succeeded with it and they said: ‘Hey, if it’s working, just keep it.’”
Work, it has. Revere has 736 hits and a .295 average in 645 career games, and this season he’s hit .271 against lefties. He has four career homers – two this season – and while his throwing arm isn’t much to talk about, Anthopoulos says his ability to run routes allows him to get to the ball quick enough that he can use that skill to hold base-runners.
Truth is, even while he was making his marquee acquisitions like David Price and Troy Tulowitzki, Anthopoulos kept on the Phillies about Revere. With Jose Reyes traded, the team needed a lefty hitter with speed even if it was for the bottom of the order. When Tulowitzki scuffled in the lead-off spot, Revere fit the role perfectly. So what if he only hits single after single. Singles are fine in this lineup.
Revere not only understands his limitations as a hitter, he embraces them. He knows what he knows.
“I’ve been in the big leagues, now, for five years and there are guys who change it up on me all the time – pitch backward, whatever,” Revere said. “They don’t want to walk me … but they won’t give me many pitches to hit. So, I make sure that I can find that pitch and put a good swing on it.”
Yeah, but how about that hitch? How does it all work? Blue Jays hitting coach Brook Jacoby admitted that he had questions about it when Revere showed up. But he held his tongue.
“That stuff he does with his hands … he gets it done early,” said Jacoby. “I said to him one day: ‘I bet you had a lot people in your career tell you that you can’t hit that way.’ All I do is remind him that he has to get the thing down and back up in time, on time, every time … and he does that.
“He finds the barrel,” Jacoby said matter-of-factly. “He gets the barrel on the ball – wherever it is. He can shoot it the other way, he can pull it. He really uses the whole field, is what he does.”
Revere has two more years of contractual control and with Kevin Pillar having claimed centre field and Michael Saunders and Dalton Pompey in the equation – well, you can guess who’s going to figure in trade rumours when the season is over, right?
Umm, maybe not.
“He’s a great clubhouse guy. A high energy guy who always has a smile on his face,” said Anthopoulos, who has made character a point of emphasis this season. “We were told that about him. In fact, if that commodity wasn’t there – as well as what he gives us on the field – we would not have pursued him as much as we did.”
So it will be Revere who will get the first shot at finding the ignition switch in the first playoff game in this city in 22 years, standing in at the plate, doing that thing he does with his hands. The only hitch, so far, in a beautiful relationship.
