Toronto Blue Jays catcher Danny Jansen (9) is hugged by teammate Matt Chapman as Bo Bichette looks on after hitting a game-winning two-run single against the Atlanta Braves during ninth inning interleague baseball action in Toronto, on May 14.Frank Gunn/The Canadian Press
In a meeting of some of the biggest hitters in baseball, it was a measure of the Toronto Blue Jays’ depth – as well as a display of postseason intent – that a light-hitting catcher could come up with the decisive swing on Mother’s Day.
So while Toronto’s dynamic duo of Bo Bichette and Vladimir Guerrero Jr., and Atlanta star Ronald Acuna Jr. – all batting well over .300 – naturally took top billing in this showdown, it fell to Danny Jansen and his .169 average to cap the comeback.
Down 5-4 in the bottom of the ninth – with a fourth-inning home run by former Blue Jay Kevin Pillar separating the sides – the Blue Jays loaded the bases with two out. Clutching a pink bat that was seemingly de rigueur on this special Sunday, Jansen turned on a 93-mile-an-hour sinker from reliever Raisel Iglesias. He drove it through the gap between second and third and into left field toward Pillar, bringing home both Guerrero and Matt Chapman to complete the series sweep of Atlanta by a 6-5 scoreline.
On a sunny day that looked great on TV, but was a cool 12 C at first pitch, Jansen was only too happy to put the exclamation point on the team’s 10th comeback victory of the season, even if it meant getting an ice bath from team prankster Guerrero.
“If you get an ice bath, that means something incredible happened and so, a special day, obviously my wife’s first Mother’s Day, so a very special day and a great way to cap it off,” he said after boosting his batting average a little closer to the Mendoza Line. Jansen is up to .182 after a 2-for-5 day that featured the third walk-off hit of his career.
For a team that is about to welcome the New York Yankees to town for a four-game set – even a Bronx Bombers squad that is in the American League East basement at 23-19 – Toronto will be encouraged by its home record. Sunday’s win improved the Rogers Centre record to 12-3, good for the second-best home winning percentage in baseball, behind only Tampa Bay’s 19-3.
Equally important for the team’s playoff hopes – and for anything of note if it gets there – the Blue Jays are 8-1 against division-leading teams. Beyond the three-game sweep of National League East-leading Atlanta, the team also swept the then NL Central-leading Pirates earlier this month in Pittsburgh, to go with taking two of three from baseball’s best team, the 31-11 Tampa Bay Rays.
“That’s right where you want to be,” Blue Jays manager John Schneider said. “It’s a tough schedule coming up, we know that. I think people are saying the same things about us when they’re coming to play us. So guys respond to that.
“I think that the guys know that they’re at a point as a group, and in their careers individually, that it’s time to win.”
That winning attitude certainly carried over to his starting pitcher on Sunday. Even though Yusei Kikuchi had his shortest outing of the season, getting replaced after four innings, and surrendered three home runs for just the second time this season, the Japanese left-hander termed the outing a success.
“It was tough battle against the Braves today but among all the starts that I have had this year, this is probably the biggest win and I’m very happy,” he said through a translator, after giving up nine hits and four earned runs with seven strikeouts. His opposite number, Collin McHugh, lasted just 1 2/3 innings and gave up six hits and three runs, all unearned.
Kikuchi gave up a leadoff home run to Acuna on just the third pitch of the day, and while Schneider termed his starter’s game “a weird outing” in which he had good stuff but got hurt with pitches over the middle of the plate, the 31-year-old said he won’t change the approach that has taken him to a 5-0 record this season.
“I’ve been continuing to attack the zone and sometimes when you attack the zone you get hit and so we’ll go back and check the data and all that,” he said. “But yeah, I’ll continue attacking the zone moving forward.”
Aside from Jansen playing the hero in the bottom of the ninth, the Blue Jays got a big hit out of George Springer in the fourth inning with his fourth home run. Meanwhile, Guerrero continued to swing a hot bat, briefly giving Toronto the lead with a two-run single in the second, before beginning the rally in the ninth with a shot to the right-field wall that was a single, but should probably have been a double had he not been waiting to see it go over the fence.
Given the end result, Schneider wasn’t overly concerned by his star, especially after seeing him reaching base for a 19th successive game.
“It’s nice when you win and it doesn’t come back to bite you a little bit,” he said. “Obviously weird conditions with the wind with the balls, with the roof open today, they had trouble. I think we should have been a little bit more aware of that.”
Some of the biggest cheers of the day were reserved for Pillar. The former Blue Jays centre fielder was a beloved figure during his seven seasons with Toronto – which featured back-to-back trips to the AL Championship Series – and home plate umpire Andy Fletcher respectfully held off starting the pitch clock for Pillar’s first time up to bat so that he could soak up the applause.
It wasn’t his first time back; that happened shortly after he was traded to the San Francisco Giants in 2019. But still, Pillar appreciated the love.
“It’s definitely really special to come back that many years later and to be remembered and to be appreciated,” he said. “It was overwhelming. It’s definitely a tough at-bat, there’s a lot of emotions going through your head. It was really nice.”
By his second at-bat of the afternoon though, he’d clearly processed those emotions and got back to focusing on baseball, hitting his 30th career home run at Rogers Centre – and first against the Jays. Despite a sloppy game, with the teams committing five errors between them, as well as baserunning mistakes, Pillar’s home run looked for more than four innings as though it would stand up as the winning margin, the Blue Jays showed up just in time to cap their ninth consecutive win over the Atlanta franchise.
“It’s baseball,” Jansen said. “You know, it’s a battle. There were punches going back and forth a little bit. So yeah, this team’s resilient, and we’re looking to win every game and we believe that we can with the bats and the staff we have.”