TORONTO — A few minutes after Hyun-Jin Ryu donned a Toronto Blue Jays jersey with his customary No. 99 stitched onto the back, Scott Boras, as usual, provided the quip of the day when it was noted that the number has some significance in this country.
“Actually, Canada lent No. 99 to L.A., so we thought with Hyun-Jin we’d return it back to Canada,” Ryu’s agent said with a grin as the club was unveiling their prized free-agent acquisition Friday evening at Rogers Centre.
It captured the feeling of the day perfectly.
Inside a press conference room packed with media, a large portion of them with South Korean interests, it was a scene filled with smiles and positivity as the four-year, $80-million contract the Jays handed the 32-year-old lefty became official after he passed his standard physical.
These types of days have been few and far between for the organization since 2016.
While Ryu is just beginning, one of the first pieces the Blue Jays’ front office tandem of GM Ross Atkins and president/CEO Mark Shapiro have imported to surround their core of homegrown kids, Friday’s introduction of the team’s new ace still felt like a turning point.
It remains to be seen if the fork in the road the franchise took this winter will result in a contender – only time will tell – but the focus shifting is exactly what the fan base has been waiting for since it became readily apparent early in the 2017 season that something drastic had to be done with a roster that got old almost overnight.
Two-and-a-half-years later, the days of tearing down are officially done.
From here on out, it’s about building back up.
When Boras, the most powerful agent in sports, believes it and has two months of behind-the-scenes evidence to build his case — plus $80 million shreds of green evidence — everyone else should believe it, too.
One year after playing the role of family physician and diagnosing the Blue Jays franchise with the “Blue Flu” due to their lack of spending, Boras, who has secured his clients over a billion dollars in contracts this off-season, gave them a clean bill of health this time around.
“Certainly, a little Korean soup has cleared them of the Blue Flu, that’s for sure,” Boras said.
“I think it signifies, particularly to the organization and the fans in Toronto, that they’re now at that point where what I call the Royal Youth (Biggio, Bichette, Guerrero Jr.) has arrived and the team as a whole is ready for a No. 1 pitcher.”
The Ryu investment is easy evidence of the Shapiro/Atkins plan entering its next phase.
The phrase “opportunities and alternatives” has become a bit of a punch line around these parts over the past couple years, with Atkins using it time and time again to deflect from the club’s blatant strategy to do as little as possible in free agency until the time was right.
They were criticized for waiting too long to trade veterans like Josh Donaldson, and criticized for waiting too long in free agency, only to be left with flawed buy-low options, leading to Boras’ Blue Flu comment.
“Now, it’s the beginning of a layer cake for the playoffs, where now players look at this team differently for opportunities in free agency going forward, in trades going forward,” Boras said. “I think it’s clear that the Blue Jays are now that much closer to a playoff-calibre team.”
When it came to Ryu, the Jays flipped the script on the “opportunities and alternatives” narrative.
Not only did they get their man by tacking on a fourth year, they were also persistent in their chase of the veteran southpaw, identifying Ryu as a target early on in free agency and not letting the Boras camp forget about them.
They didn’t swing and miss on five other rotation options before circling back to Ryu.
He was the target.
There were rumblings early this off-season that the Blue Jays had been relentlessly aggressive behind the scenes in the opening days of free agency, checking in on everything from the top tier to the bottom tiers, and at multiple positions.
That was fairly met with skepticism — especially from those who had paid close attention to the previous four winters, all marked by relative inactivity — as starting pitchers started to come off the board quickly in early December.
Boras said the Blue Jays front office called him repeatedly on Ryu, as many as “nine or 10” times, and that persistence did not go unnoticed.
“Toronto was engaged from the very get-go of free agency and there’s a lot of great younger players on this team, so that’s why I came to Toronto,” Ryu said Friday.
The annual winter meetings from Dec. 9-12 were the turning point, with Shapiro and Atkins hunkering down for a long meeting with the Ryu camp inside a Manchester Grand Hyatt suite in San Diego.
“It was very apparent that they had focused in on Hyun-Jin to sign him and were very serious about it,” Boras said. “That was communicated to Hyun-Jin and I think it’s a human dynamic — their persistence and their interest was something that he took notice of and he did a lot of study on the city and the team and gave me the okay to pursue reaching an agreement with them.”
The feeling was mutual.
As Ryu learned more about the Jays, the franchise, and Toronto, the city, Atkins & Co. continued to find reasons to push their chips in even further on the lefty that led baseball with a 2.32 ERA and finished second in National League Cy Young voting.
“He’s masterful as a pitcher,” Atkins said. “The more we dug, the more we learned, the more we liked him. Our sights were on him early and we kept them on him. He’s an exceptional athlete that can get outs in all quadrants of the zone with four different pitches and he can do it in different ways, to different hitters.”
Despite the big-money signing and the ensuing smiles from all involved, don’t mistake the Ryu signing with immediate contention.
There’s still internal options to sort out — is this really the outfield of a contender? Not a chance — and another winter of using some of Rogers’ financial clout to add more impact a year from now is needed.
The Jays won’t be going from 67 wins to 90, even if the unexpected has happened in this sport before.
But just like you could dream on a lineup with three sons of former big league all-stars prior to last season, you can now dream on a rotation headlined by Ryu and top prospect Nate Pearson starting to come together in the second half of 2020, providing hope that legitimately meaningful baseball could be played deep into September in 2021.
What should the investment in Ryu signify to the paying public?
“That we’re taking the next step,” said Atkins, correctly going the route of tempering immediate expectations. “The younger group transitioned and transitioned well, and now we need to go from being a team that’s not just competing but winning, and he will certainly help us do that.”
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.
