TORONTO – The Toronto Blue Jays have five wins this season and Davis Schneider has provided the game-changing swing in two of them. Pretty good for a player who’s only started in four of his club’s games.
On Monday night Schneider stood on the third base line alongside his teammates in what was the first home opener of his major-league career. About an hour later, he came up to the dish with one out and the bases loaded.
The Blue Jays were up 1-0 and had Seattle Mariners right-hander Luis Castillo on the ropes. Failure to notch big hits in these types of situations has been a running theme for the Blue Jays, both last year and this season. Everybody knows that, and so did Schneider.
So, he kept his mindset simple: just put the ball in play.
Castillo started the at-bat with a four-seam fastball outside the zone, before getting a called strike and swinging strike. The right-hander missed outside to put the count at 2-2, then unleashed a slider so far off the plate that Schneider’s bat could barely reach it. It did though, as Schneider, awkward swing and all, flicked the ball to centre field to drive in two runs and put the Blue Jays up 3-0.
“His two-seamer is one of the best pitches in baseball and it moves a lot — he throws 97 (m.p.h),” Schneider said of Castillo. “I was expecting a two-seam inside and I just stayed on the slider a little bit away. I kind of got lucky with it and just poked it out there.
“It wasn’t the best swing. But, you know, good things happen when you put the ball in play.”
The Blue Jays eventually secured the 5-2 win over the Mariners in front of 40,069 at Rogers Centre and Schneider’s contribution stood up as the key moment.
“That was probably the turning point,” said Blue Jays manager John Schneider.
Just a week ago Davis Schneider provided another turning point when he clubbed a two-out, ninth-inning home run off Houston Astros closer Josh Hader that saved the Blue Jays from defeat at the last possible second.
“He doesn’t change his approach really,” said the manager on Monday. “His at-bats are really consistent, whether it’s early or late. I think that’s what makes him really good. He has a knack for just putting good at-bats together and they’ve (come with) a couple of guys on base, whether it’s a homer at Houston or tonight.
“I think that’s kind of the definition of clutch is not really changing what you’re doing in big moments.”
Schneider’s playing time came into focus after that home run in Houston because the Blue Jays opted to keep him out of the lineup in the very next game John Schneider said the thinking behind that decision was based on the matchup of the right-handed hitting Davis Schneider against the right-handed throwing Cristian Javier.
The reality, though, is that this Blue Jays offence needs all the help it can get, especially at a time when several of its regulars — George Springer, Bo Bichette, Alejandro Kirk and Daulton Varsho — own sub-.700 OPSs. If Schneider continues to produce in big moments, it’ll become increasingly difficult to explain why he’s not pencilled into the starting lineup.
The Blue Jays offence ranks 21st in MLB in runs scored (41), 22nd in OPS (.646) and 28th in average (.206). Schneider says the group is confident it has better days ahead, though, and Monday night was an indicator of that.
“We played three good teams on the road trip — Tampa, Houston, the Yankees — we got four wins out of it,” said Schneider, who also collected a single in the eighth inning on Monday. “A lot of people were saying the season was over after 10 games, which is funny because we play 162. But we have a really good ballclub. You know, we won four games and we didn’t really hit that well. That’s a testament to our pitching.
“It’s a long season,” he added. “If you get complacent to where it’s the end of the world after one game, then bad things are going to happen the next day. We’re just that type of team where we know we have the talent. It’s just a matter of being consistent with our work. It’s not going to be every game where we’re going to go out there and get 10 hits and score eight or so runs. But, just make sure we’re putting in the work each day to make sure that the next day it’s going to pay off.”
Schneider’s work has certainly paid off over the past seven days, through both big and small swings.