DUNEDIN, Fla. – Friday’s game against the Boston Red Sox wasn’t just any old spring victory for the Toronto Blue Jays. It was as close as they’ve come to having an opening day lineup on the field, and several questions were answered emphatically and affirmatively over the course of the afternoon.
In his first game of the spring, Devon Travis played a flawless second base and doubled in a run on the first pitch he saw. Josh Donaldson made a really nice play at third – in only his second game in the field – going to his backhand on one knee and making a great throw. Jose Bautista, in his first action since missing a World Baseball Classic game with a stuffed back, doubled in a run. J.A. Happ became the first Blue Jays starter to pitch into the sixth inning this spring (for the Jays, as opposed to Team USA), allowing just one earned run and didn’t issue a walk.
And that wasn’t all.
Here are some other things that stood out to me about the Blue Jays’ third straight Grapefruit League win:
TEST PASSED FOR PEARCE
The Blue Jays’ left-field situation is still very much in the air. Though Ezequiel Carrera was back in the lineup Friday after suffering a thigh contusion in a collision with Darwin Barney on March 20, Melvin Upton, Jr. remains on the shelf with a sore shoulder and Steve Pearce hasn’t played a game in the outfield yet.
Pearce has been on a throwing program as he recovers from off-season elbow surgery, and he’s expected to make his debut in left field this week. He was playing first base on Friday when the opportunity arose to show how the arm is coming along.
With a runner on first in the fourth inning, Blake Swihart hit a ground ball to Pearce, who was just off the bag. If Pearce was still protecting his throwing arm, he would have just stepped on the base for the out, allowing the runner to move to second. Instead – and without hesitation – Pearce turned and threw a bullet to second base to get the lead runner, and was back at first to catch the relay and complete the double-play.
The throw was hard and crisp, on a line, and looked very good. Granted it was only about 85 feet, as opposed to a throw that would need to be made from the outfield, but it was something we had yet to see from Pearce this spring, and it went as well as it possibly could have.
PILLAR WALKS THE TALK
Blue Jays’ centre-fielder Kevin Pillar was on The Jeff Blair Show Friday morning talking about his new approach to hitting and he said some fantastic things. Among them was the idea that it’s not just about hitting with two strikes, it’s about how an at-bat gets to two strikes. While many Jays fans have been frustrated over the years at Pillar’s weakness in laying off two-strike pitches off the plate, Pillar said a big key for him is going to be showing more discipline earlier in the count. He said he realizes that he doesn’t have to swing at a pitch just because it’s a strike if it’s a strike he doesn’t especially like or is not in a spot where he’s looking (until there are two strikes, obviously).
One of Pillar’s weaknesses as a major-league hitter has been that he has rarely let a pitch go by in a favourable hitter’s count, almost no matter where it is.
In his second plate appearance on Friday, Pillar practised what he preached.
After a second-inning single to centre, Pillar led off the fourth against Red Sox lefty Drew Pomeranz and found himself ahead in the count 2-0. Pomeranz spun the next pitch into the zone, a breaking ball that wasn’t a good pitch to hit and Pillar took it for a strike.
The 2-1 pitch missed, and Pillar found himself in that tasty 3-1 count, where in the past he has always been geared up to take a hack at what he’s expected will be a strike. The 3-1 pitch was low and Pillar took it – his sixth walk this spring against only four strikeouts.
We’ll see if things change when games count for real, but so far this continues to be a very welcome and effective change in Pillar’s mindset at the plate.
GO-GO GADGET GLOVE
We have seen Ryan Goins all over the field this spring, as expected. The defensive whiz had seen action at second base, third, shortstop and left field going into Friday’s game when he popped out of the dugout in the sixth inning with a first baseman’s glove on and took over for Pearce.
Goins isn’t entirely unfamiliar with the position, having played there twice in big-league games for a grand total of 5.1 innings, but it was the first time we’d seen him there this spring. He’s out of options, and in a real crunch to crack the 25-man roster if everyone around him is healthy, and having Travis, Donaldson and Bautista all in the lineup Friday showed that the health concerns in Jays camp seem now to be pretty minimal.
We all know what Goins can do with the glove, and he was just plain showing off at first base on Friday when he made three terrific scoops on short-hop throws.
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Two of those great picks came in the eighth inning, the first on a bounced throw from Jake Elmore at third and the second masterfully snatched to save Gregorio Petit and complete an inning-ending double-play. Goins came off the field and jogged into the Blue Jays’ dugout with a huge smile on his face.
The third great scoop may very well have saved the day for the Blue Jays, as Goins dug Shane Optiz’s throw out of the dirt for the game’s final out, as Mike Miller was crossing the plate with what would have been the tying run.
With Upton, Jr. still nursing a sore shoulder, there may be a roster spot available for Goins so the Blue Jays can keep him in the organization. Goins certainly wouldn’t make it through waivers, so if he’s not going to make the team, the Jays’ best course of action is to trade him. Friday he showed both Blue Jays brass and some of his potential suitors another aspect of his seemingly limitless capabilities on defence.
It’s going to be a busy weekend for the Blue Jays, as they’ll split their squad and play two games each on Saturday and Sunday. The regulars will hit the road to Tampa for a Saturday afternoon date with the Yankees while Pearce, Russell Martin and other will stay back to take on the Canadian National Junior Team in what’s always a fun and heartwarming day at the ballpark. Hopefully, since they’re playing a team comprised of players who are under 18 years of age, the Blue Jays take the opportunity to call up their top prospect from minor-league camp and get him into the game. After all, Vladimir Guerrero, Jr. just turned 18 last week, and is a Canadian himself! Jerry Howarth, Joe Siddall and I will have the call of the game against the Junior Nats beginning with the pre-game show at 12:30 p.m. ET. You can listen here.