TORONTO — One day in the batting cage a few weeks back, Davis Schneider and Lou Iannotti were discussing different types of swing sequences to better load weight onto the back hip and keep the upper half of the body and hands aligned. They’d watched some video of Joc Pederson, but the more they broke things down, the Toronto Blue Jays assistant hitting coach, who’d come over from the Los Angeles Dodgers system, told the slugger that what he was trying to do sounded like what Will Smith does at the plate.
A master at mimicking different batting stances, Schneider said, “all right, I'll just copy him and see what happens,” adopting the all-star catcher’s hands-high start and pulling them down to his usual, by-the-shoulder launch spot. “My hands naturally go down, so having them up just gets them to the (right) spot (to launch). I'm going to change it probably in a couple weeks, that's just what I do. But I feel like I'm in a good spot. I'm seeing the ball well.”
Well enough that manager John Schneider decided to bat him leadoff against Max Fried on Wednesday, as the New York Yankees once again treated the baseball like a hand grenade and the Blue Jays capitalized for an 8-4 win that clinched the season series.
Davis Schneider helped force some of the Yankees’ chaos, walking with one out in the fifth, advancing to second on one wild pitch before taking third, along with George Springer after he’d walked, on another errant offering. Both he and Springer then scored when Vladimir Guerrero Jr. hit a weak chopper up the third-base line that Fried fielded and, unwisely, fired home, the ball squirting away from catcher J.C. Escarra for the first of four New York errors.
“For a guy who's not in there every day to make that read and have the nuts to do that is special,” Ernie Clement said of Schneider’s advance to second. “That was the play of the game for me. It could be overlooked, but that's just the epitome of what we're doing right now.”
That rally put the Blue Jays up 4-2, but after a two-run homer from Aaron Judge in the sixth tied the game, Cody Bellinger lost a lazy fly ball to right field by Clement that went for a triple in the bottom half of the inning. Myles Straw followed with a go-ahead double and then scored when first baseman Ben Rice booted a Will Wagner smash.
In the seventh, Guerrero opened the inning with a single and took second when Jasson Dominguez misplayed the ball in left field, with Bo Bichette following by drilling a two-run homer that made it 8-4.
That sealed the deal as the Blue Jays (60-42) improved to 7-3 this season against the Yankees (56-46), while pushing their lead back up to four games atop the AL East before a sellout crowd of 42,143.
Particularly noticeable in the way they won six of the seven meetings between the clubs over the past 3½ weeks is their contrast in style. The Blue Jays stole hits with their air-tight defence, created havoc on the bases and routinely put the ball in play to keep the heat on a shaky infield for the Yankees, who need to outslug their flaws to win.
“The little things, the fundamental things, the things that you don't really think about are so magnified when you're playing a good team and we've absolutely keyed on that and made sure to take care of the fundamentals and those little things,” said Clement, who also had an RBI single after Guerrero’s RBI double in the fourth. “I believe the more you do that, the more they add up and the more you're going to win baseball games.”
A different test of the Blue Jays’ fundamentals looms when they open an intriguing four-game series Thursday at the Detroit Tigers (60-43), who, along with the Houston Astros (60-42), are chasing the best record in the American League.
“We're going to play a team that does the exact same thing in Detroit, so you have to be ready for it,” said John Schneider. “We really pride ourselves on taking care of the baseball. It's been really fun to watch this shift in base-running. And I think when they see what it can do to not only get opportunities to score, but what it can do to the defence on the other side, you get more and more buy-in. To me it's the right way to play the game.”
Especially against a Yankees team that relied on homers to mask their miscues, as Dominguez’s solo shot in the second and Anthony Volpe’s solo shot in the fifth ahead of Judge’s two-run shot in the sixth weren’t enough.
Chris Bassitt surrendered those three drives over 7.1 otherwise strong innings and then watched as lefty Justin Bruihl gave up consecutive singles to lefties Trent Grisham and Bellinger before getting Judge to hit into an inning-ending double play.
Yariel Rodriguez then handled the ninth to close out a 5-1 homestand out of the all-star break.
“Defensively, every night I feel like it's something special that happens,” said Bassitt. “Baserunning, every night I feel like we're putting pressure on the other team. And then obviously the at-bats, same thing. Just make everyone work hard and then when they give mistakes, you hit them.”
Davis Schneider and his new batting stance are a part of that.
Growing up, he used what he called “the most generic, white-guy, MLB The Show stance,” but once he reached East Regional High School in Vorhees, N.J., he began his now long-running custom of frequent switches.
At different points of his prep days, he mimicked Bryce Harper, Paul Goldschmidt and Springer at the plate, which “is kind of funny now that I'm playing with George.”
After the Blue Jays picked him in the 28th round of the 2017 draft, “I did Bo (Bichette) for a couple of games, in 2019, I did Bellinger when he was having his MVP year. I did Pete Alonso during games. I do (Aaron) Judge from time-to-time during a (batting practice) round. Hunter (Mense, another Blue Jays assistant hitting coach who worked with him in the minors) always jokes that whoever was doing well in the big-leagues, I kind of copied. I just fiddle with stuff.”
At the same time, there’s some method to that madness.
“I like to feel different things, like why do guys do this, what do they feel?” Schneider explained. “The way Judge hits is unique. He's so quick and what he does makes sense. I know a lot of people disagree a bit with what his swing does, but it works for him and he's so quick and gets behind the ball really well. If I can just try to feel that sometimes and go into my regular stance, it's going to incorporate.”
And Schneider is always watching.
In Sacramento before the all-star break, for instance, he noticed the way Athletics shortstop Jacob Wilson shuffles his feet in the batter’s box to help the timing of his load and decided to try that, too.
“He gets to that backside really well and he gets to that launch spot, too,” said Schneider. “I want to get into the heel, and that just helps me get a little bit more rhythm there.”
Ultimately, while the batting stance may change, the way Schneider starts his swing does not, so what he’s really doing is trying to find the best path to the spot.
“That's literally what it is,” he said. “Hunter always used to say, I don't care what you do, as long as you get to the spot where you launch from. I feel comfortable with the way I'm starting now. And that might change in two weeks. We'll see.”
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