Joe Maddon’s willingness to defy popular baseball conventions are well-known so perhaps the question was inevitable.
The Tampa Bay Rays manager had just spent a significant portion of his pre-game scrum marvelling at the talents of Jose Bautista, when a reporter asked if he would walk the Toronto Blue Jays slugger with the bases loaded.
“Who knows? He’s good. He’s real good,” said Maddon prior to Wednesday’s game between the two teams at Rogers Centre. “He’s in that echelon, that other league. He could get promoted from this league to another one.”
Maddon, who in addition to being regarded as one of baseball’s most progressive-thinking minds, isn’t afraid to heap praise on opposing players, had a front row seat Tuesday night as Bautista put his full talents on display in a 7-3 Toronto win. In the second inning of that game, the 31-year-old Dominican belted a Jeff Niemann offering deep into the second deck in left field for his second home run of the season.
Earlier in the top of the first, after Carlos Pena hit a bullet over Bautista’s head in right, the Rays first baseman made a hard turn at first and headed for second. Bautista – who spent significant time last summer practicing playing hard hit balls off the same wall – played it perfectly, turned and fired a strike into the glove of Yunel Escobar, tagging out Pena with time to spare.
“Didn’t surprise me,” Maddon said when asked whether he was surprised by the margin with which Pena was thrown out by. “(Bautista’s) got a great arm. He’s one of the best defensive players in baseball, I don’t care if it’s third base or out (in right field).
“He’s got one of the strongest throwing arms, he catches the ball well, he’s an instinctive baseball player. He’s really good.”
Maddon spoke with similar reverence for how dangerous Bautista is at the plate and the speed with which his second-inning home run exited the yard.
“He’s incredible,” he said. “The way he squared up that ball and how it just got so small, so fast and he’s been struggling a little bit, you know, and then he gets the sacrifice fly he just missed. Every time he swings the bat it could go over the wall. Every time.
“He looks like he’s never in a bad hitting position, he’s never fooled. He might out-guess himself on occasion, but he’s really all that good.”
MADDON SAYS HE WASN’T DISSING ROMERO
On Tuesday, the Rays started four lefties against Blue Jays ace Ricky Romero.
Prior to the game, Maddon suggested he would have liked to have started even more against the Blue Jays ace left-hander.
“If I had nine lefties I’d play nine lefties,” he said. “This guy is a strong reverse splits guy.”
Maddon is correct. For his career, left-handers have hit Romero to the tune of .279/.356/.471/.827 while right-handers have fared much worse at .230/.312/.340/.652.
Numbers be damned, when informed post-game Tuesday of Maddon’s lineup logic, Romero said he’s not concerned with the Rays skipper’s approach or his words.
“I really don’t care what he has to say or what his mindset is against me,” said Romero. “If he has nine lefties against me, I’ll find a way to win and that’s just the bottom line. Obviously there have been days where those guys have been successful against me from the left side and there have been those days where I’ve come out on top.
“He can do whatever he wants, I’m not worried about that, I just go out there and pitch.”
When told Wednesday that his pre-game comments may have offended Romero, Maddon was quick to praise him.
“I’m just telling you what I thought. I wasn’t dissing anybody. I think he’s great,” he explained. “He’s a great young pitcher, one of the best pitchers in the American League, there’s no question. So when you’re trying to beat guys, you got to be creative, because they don’t give it up.”
