TORONTO – Baseball of any sort, even an intrasquad game, is a thing of beauty as we emerge from four months of shutdown. Bo Bichette taking Matt Shoemaker hella deep was a sight to behold. So too was Rowdy Tellez going oppo off southpaw Brian Moran, as the relievers in the ‘pen gave bullpen coach Matt Buschmann, playing left field, the gears for his sketchy tracking of the drive.
“Come on, Busch. Get up!” one of them shouted.
Good times, though that Buschmann not only played left field, but bounced between there, centre and right, that catching prospect Riley Adams covered a few innings in right, that shortstop prospect Kevin Smith did the same, that Teoscar Hernandez was the only regular to see any action Thursday evening raised an important question: Where are the club’s outfielders?
Along with Sportsnet colleagues Arden Zwelling and Ben Nicholson-Smith, we spotted 43 of the 46 players manager Charlie Montoyo said made the trip north from Dunedin, Fla., last Sunday. Twelve others not identified by the club remain there after one player tested positive for COVID-19 during intake, and the rest were pulled away because they had direct contact with him, an industry source said earlier this week.
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The team has thus far declined to disclose which of the 46 players are in Toronto.
Here are the players, in alphabetical order, we’ve seen here:
Of the seven outfielders on the Blue Jays’ 40-man roster, only Hernandez is on that list. Of the other six, only Jonathan Davis is on the injured list, added last week in an unannounced and unexplained transaction.
Whether the Blue Jays are facing a problem in their outfield, and how big it might be, is unclear.
It’s possible some of them are in Toronto and were out of sight Thursday, but that would make for some odd outfield coverage. It’s possible some of them are being sidelined as a precaution as part of contact-tracing measures. It’s possible some of them have contracted the coronavirus. Teams are not allowed to divulge whether a player has been placed on the COVID-19 injured list, but infection numbers can be announced, something the Philadelphia Phillies have done regularly, and players can be identified if they grant permission, the way Brad Keller and Ryan O’Hearn of the Kansas City Royals did this week. The team even included quotes from both in their news release.
The absence of information makes things murky, and leads to speculation, a byproduct Yankees GM Brian Cashman acknowledged during a conference call with New York media last week: “The information I’ve been given is (media) will be left to try to figure that out. Somebody might be down and out, but we might not be able to speak to why, and it would be a speculating circumstance, you would have to use your journalistic superpowers to determine if there’s anything there or not, what the circumstance might be.”
What we know as it relates to the Blue Jays is that 12 players aren’t in Toronto, and Hernandez is the only outfielder on the 40-man roster seen Thursday or in the limited video clips of the club’s workouts here the past few days.
The situation highlights the personal health risk each player is taking this summer, and very, very secondarily, the challenges infections and the steps taken to prevent spread present to fielding a roster. They’re the obvious downsides to playing amid a pandemic.
Ben Nicholson-Smith is Sportsnet’s baseball editor. Arden Zwelling is a senior writer. Together, they bring you the most in-depth Blue Jays podcast in the league, covering off all the latest news with opinion and analysis, as well as interviews with other insiders and team members.
Bichette, speaking generally about the sacrifices players must make this summer for the endeavour to work, put it this way: “There’s definitely going to have to be some discipline from the team, staying inside and making sure that not only are we keeping ourselves healthy, but keeping the rest of the team healthy. It’s bigger than ourselves, and we’re going to do our best to make sure we keep everybody healthy in here.”
The upside, of course, is having baseball again, of regaining a slice normalcy amid the enduring uncertainty that surrounds us all.
Bichette got to Shoemaker, but beyond that, the veteran right-hander was remarkably effective over five-ish innings of work, allowing just the two runs with four strikeouts. He got up to 60 pitches, 42 of them strikes, and rather than being at the beginning of the ramp-up process, he’s at the dialing-in pitches phase, on track to be pushing toward 100 once the season begins.
Tellez added a couple of singles around his home run, Travis Shaw cleverly poked a single against the shift, Caleb Joseph threw out Reese McGuire trying to steal third after reaching on a line-drive double and the infielders turned a pair of crisp double play, all done with an air of competitive collegiality.
“Some of us talked about this (Wednesday) night, we’re still playing baseball, even though it’s against our team. It is different than playing a different team, but when you’re on the mound, and you just have that mentality that you’re going to beat that guy, you’re going to get that guy out, you can still make it pretty similar and game-like to in-season,” said Shoemaker. “When you can lock it in, I’m battling, me-versus-you right now, just go to battle. Having that mindset just gets us ready for the game and gives us a better chance to win.”
To give the proceedings some formality, the Blue Jays piped in walk-up music, sound-effects on foul balls and dropped some beats during the changeover between innings. Conversations reverberated through the predominant silence, a sneak-preview of what fan-free games during the season will sound like.
Surreally weird all around.
“We’re getting ready for a different kind of season, no fans, so when the season starts we’re going to have to learn how to create our own adrenaline, so I guess we’re practising that now,” said Bichette. “There’s not a whole lot of adrenaline when you’re facing your own teammates – it’s more like a practice scenario. We’re going to figure out how to get as ready as we can, get that adrenaline going to the best of our ability on our own merit and see what we can do.”
Within that environment, the Blue Jays will need to make several difficult roster decisions, with manager Charlie Montoyo praising Jordan Romano’s work during live BPs Wednesday, saying the right-hander was building a pathway to leverage innings.
Intrasquads certainly aren’t the ideal way to settle on a roster, but Montoyo appreciates the way his players are making the best of what they’ve got.
“They’re really competing against each other. It was fun for me to watch the live BPs, it was fun for me to watch (Hyun-Jin) Ryu face Bo Bichette and try to get him out, and Vladdy and them (Wednesday). They’re competing and they’re having good at-bats. It’s been fun watching that. These guys are professionals, they can have fun, but at the end of the day, when someone is on the mound, the hitter wants to get a hit, and the pitcher wants to strike him out. That’s what I saw and that’s fun to watch.”
GUADALAJARA, Mexico – Canada’s Marina Stakusic fell 6-4, 6-3 to Poland’s Magdalena Frech in the quarterfinals of the Guadalajara Open tennis tournament on Friday.
The 19-year-old from Mississauga, Ont., won 61 per cent of her first-serve points and broke on just one of her six opportunities.
Stakusic had upset top-seeded Jelena Ostapenko of Latvia 6-3, 5-7, 7-6 (0) on Thursday night to advance.
In the opening round, Stakusic defeated Slovakia’s Anna Karolína Schmiedlová 6-2, 6-4 on Tuesday.
The fifth-seeded Frech won 62 per cent of her first-serve points and converted on three of her nine break point opportunities.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
TORONTO – Alejandro Kirk’s long single with the bases loaded provided the Toronto Blue Jays with a walk-off 4-3 win in the 11th inning of their series opener against the St. Louis Cardinals on Friday.
With the Cardinals outfield in, Kirk drove a shot off the base of the left-field wall to give the Blue Jays (70-78) their fourth win in 11 outings and halt the Cardinals’ (74-73) two-game win streak before 30,380 at Rogers Centre.
Kirk enjoyed a two-hit, two-RBI outing.
Erik Swanson (2-2) pitched a perfect 11th inning for the win, while Cardinals reliever Ryan Fernandez (1-5) took the loss.
Blue Jays starter Kevin Gausman enjoyed a seven-inning, 104-pitch outing. He surrendered his two runs on nine hits and two walks and fanned only two Cardinals.
He gave way to reliever Genesis Cabrera, who gave up a one-out homer to Thomas Saggese, his first in 2024, that tied the game in the eighth.
The Cardinals started swiftly with four straight singles to open the game. But they exited the first inning with only two runs on an RBI single to centre from Nolan Arendao and a fielder’s choice from Saggese.
Gausman required 28 pitches to escape the first inning but settled down to allow his teammates to snatch the lead in the fourth.
He also deftly pitched out of threats from the visitors in the fifth, sixth and seventh thanks to some solid defence, including Will Wagner’s diving stop, which led to a double play to end the fifth inning.
George Springer led off with a walk and stole second base. He advanced to third on Nathan Lukes’s single and scored when Vladimir Guerrero Jr. knocked in his 95th run with a double off the left-field wall.
Lukes scored on a sacrifice fly to left field from Spencer Horwitz. Guerrero touched home on Kirk’s two-out single to right.
In the ninth, Guerrero made a critical diving catch on an Arenado grounder to throw out the Cardinals’ infielder, with reliever Tommy Nance covering first. The defensive gem ended the inning with a runner on second base.
St. Louis starter Erick Fedde faced the minimum night batters in the first three innings thanks to a pair of double plays. He lasted five innings, giving up three runs on six hits and a walk with three strikeouts.
ON DECK
Toronto ace Jose Berrios (15-9) will start the second of the three-game series on Saturday. He has a six-game win streak.
The Cardinals will counter with righty Kyle Gibson (8-6).
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
CALGARY – Mired in their first four-game losing skid in 20 years, the Calgary Stampeders are going back to Jake Maier at quarterback on Saturday after he was benched for a game.
It won’t be an easy assignment.
Visiting McMahon Stadium are the Eastern Conference-leading Montreal Alouettes (10-2) who own the CFL’s best record. The Stampeders (4-8) have fallen to last in the Western Conference.
“Six games is plenty of time, but also it is just six games,” said Maier. “We’ve got to be able to get on the right track.”
Calgary is in danger of missing the playoffs for the first time since 2004.
“I do still believe in this team,” said Stampeders’ head coach and general manager Dave Dickenson. “I want to see improvement, though. I want to see guys on a weekly basis elevating their game, and we haven’t been doing that.”
Maier is one of the guys under the microscope. Two weeks ago, the second-year starter threw four interceptions in a 35-20 home loss to the Edmonton Elks.
After his replacement, rookie Logan Bonner, threw five picks in last week’s 37-16 loss to the Elks in Edmonton, the football is back in Maier’s hands.
“Any time you fail or something doesn’t go your way in life, does it stink in the moment? Yeah. But then the days go on and you learn things about yourself and you learn how to prepare a little bit better,” said Maier. “It makes you mentally tougher.”
Dickenson wants to see his quarterback making better decisions with the football.
“Things are going to happen, interceptions will happen, but try to take calculated risks, rather than just putting the ball up there and hoping that we catch it,” said Dickenson.
A former quarterback himself, he knows the importance of that vital position.
“You cannot win without good quarterback play,” Dickenson said. “You’ve got to be able to make some plays — off-schedule plays, move-around plays, plays that break down, plays that aren’t designed perfectly, but somehow you found the right guy, and then those big throws where you’re taking that hit.”
But it’s going to take a team effort, and that includes the club’s receiving corp.
“We always have to band together because we need everything to go right for our receivers to get the ball,” said Nik Lewis, the Stampeders’ receivers coach. “The running back has to pick up the blitz, the o-line has to block, the quarterback has to make the right reads, and then give us a catchable ball.”
Lewis brings a unique perspective to this season’s frustrations as he was a 22-year-old rookie in Calgary in 2004 when the Stamps went 4-14 under coach Matt Dunigan. They turned it around the next season and haven’t missed the playoffs since.”
“Thinking back and just looking at it, there’s just got to be an ultimate belief that you can get it done. Look at Montreal, they were 6-7 last year and they’ve gone 18-2 since then,” said Lewis.
Montreal is also looking to rebound from a 37-23 loss to the B.C. Lions last week. But for head coach Jason Maas, he says his team’s mindset doesn’t change, regardless of what happened the previous week.
“Last year when we went through a four-game losing streak, you couldn’t tell if we were on a four-game winning streak or a four-game losing streak by the way the guys were in the building, the way we prepared, the type of work ethic we have,” said Maas. “All our standards are set, so that’s all we focus on.”
While they may have already clinched a playoff spot, Alouettes’ quarterback Cody Fajardo says this closing stretch remains critical because they want to finish the season strong, just like last year when they won their final five regular-season games before ultimately winning the Grey Cup.
“It doesn’t matter about what you do at the beginning of the year,” said Fajardo. “All that matters is how you end the year and how well you’re playing going into the playoffs so that’s what these games are about.”
The Alouettes’ are kicking off a three-game road stretch, one Fajardo looks forward to.
“You understand what kind of team you have when you play on the road because it’s us versus the world mentality and you can feel everybody against you,” said Fajardo. “Plus, I always tend to find more joy in silencing thousands of people than bringing thousands of people to their feet.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
