HOUSTON — Sunday morning, when Ryan Borucki found out he was going to Texas to make his major-league debut with the Toronto Blue Jays, one of the first people he texted was one of his closest mentors in this game — John Schneider. Hey, Schneid — I know you know. Give me a call.
“We’ve been through a lot together. He’s seen me at my worst and my best,” Borucki said. “He’s gotten me out of the gutter a couple times. So, he’s the one guy I really wanted to call to give the news to myself.”
Perhaps no one has witnessed as much of Borucki’s development as Schneider, who’s currently helming the double-A New Hampshire Fisher Cats in his 10th season as a Blue Jays minor-league coach. Schneider was Borucki’s first manager, when the lanky left-hander entered pro ball as an 18-year-old in the Gulf Coast League. And he followed Borucki up the organizational ladder, managing him at low-A Vancouver, class-A Lansing, and last season with the high-A Dunedin Blue Jays, which was when the 15th-round pick’s career really took off.
When Schneider got that text, he grabbed Ken Huckaby, a Blue Jays coordinator who has worked closely with Borucki as well. A video call was placed. Borucki picked up, absolutely beaming. And then things got emotional.
“Ryan’s worked so hard to get to where he is. And just getting to share that moment with him was pretty special — it reminds us why we do what we do,” Schneider said Tuesday, before Borucki made his major-league debut that evening against the Houston Astros. “You spend so much time with the player — you really get to know the kid, you’re getting to know his parents, you see all the work he’s put in. And then, eventually, you get to see him have this awesome moment. I just couldn’t be happier for him.”
That Borucki’s moment came against baseball’s most prolific offence speaks to how high the Blue Jays are on the 24-year-old. And that Borucki held that lineup to two runs over six innings in a 7-0 Blue Jays loss speaks to how well-placed Toronto’s confidence is.
“Shoot, I thought he was fantastic — I really did,” said Blue Jays manager John Gibbons. “They’re a great hitting ball club and they put pressure on him. But he didn’t cave.”
The only damage Borucki allowed came in his fifth inning, when he put two runners on with one out. Borucki got a quick fly ball for his second out, but a first-pitch fastball in the dirt to Evan Gattis allowed the runners to advance 90 feet. Gattis bounced the very next pitch up the middle to cash both.
Undeterred, Borucki got the next batter to pop out weakly before returning to throw a clean, nine-pitch sixth. It was a theme of Borucki’s night, as he allowed baserunners in each inning he pitched, but held the Astros to 1-for-8 with runners in scoring position while stranding seven.
“For a young guy, he’s got great feel out there,” said Russell Martin, who caught Borucki’s outing. “He was unafraid to throw strikes — he was in attack mode all night.”
Of course, this is nothing new to Schneider. He calls Borucki “the best competitor we can put on the mound in the minor leagues.” He’s seen it time and again.
Like in 2014, when Borucki was 20 and pitching for the Vancouver Canadians. Starting the first playoff game of his career, Borucki navigated his way through six shutout innings. Schneider was considering going to his bullpen to get through the final nine outs and Borucki knew it. So, when he returned to the dugout after the sixth, he walked straight up to his manager and made his case.
“I won’t repeat exactly what he said. But it was to the effect of, ‘Schneid, I’m not coming out of this game right now,’” Schneider said. “I loved it.”
Schneider let his young starter go back out for the seventh. And even when Borucki allowed a two-out double, he left him in. A groundout soon followed, and Vancouver went on to win the game, 1-0.
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Then there was the outing last year in Dunedin. Borucki was making his fifth start of the season against the Tampa Yankees, but he was being limited to only 50 pitches because he was coming off a minor injury. Before the game, when Schneider told him what a short leash he’d be on, Borucki was frustrated by the limitation, but said he was determined to make the most of the few pitches he had.
All Borucki did was strike out the first seven he faced, and carry a perfect game through 3.2 innings before he reached 45 pitches and Schneider had to go to the mound to lift him.
“I’m walking out there and he’s got this little smirk on his face,” Schneider remembers. “I take the ball and he goes, ‘So, how was that?’ I was like, ‘It was pretty damn good, Ry.’
“That’s just his mentality. He’s such a competitor. He just wants to beat you so bad when he’s on the mound. And he’ll do anything in his power to do that.”
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Of course, Borucki’s journey to get to this point has been anything but smooth. He missed the entire 2013 season after undergoing Tommy John surgery, and all but 5.2 innings of 2015 thanks to shoulder and elbow issues. His first full season didn’t come until 2016, a full four years after he was drafted.
But it was in 2017 that things really picked up. Borucki began the season with high-A Dunedin and finished it with triple-A Buffalo, as he put up stellar results at each level the Blue Jays challenged him with. He finished the year with a 2.93 ERA over 150.1 innings, posting a 9.4 K/9 and allowing only seven home runs.
Borucki credited the development of his slider — a crucial third pitch to go along with his two-seamer and change-up — for his breakout success. Improved command of his low-to-mid 90s fastball helped, too, as Borucki used his heater much more effectively in the zone to play off his change-up.
“He’s got good feel for it. He locates it well, keeps it down,” Martin said of Borucki’s change-up. “It blends nicely off the fastball, too. He uses the fastball and the change-up off the same plane and disguises them that way. So, it’s tough for a hitter to recognize that, because they’ve got the same spin, too.”
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That off-speed pitch has always been Borucki’s best, and he can manipulate the speed and location of it throughout the course of a game — and even an at-bat — in order to get both swing-and-miss and weak contact. At times in the minors, Borucki has thrown six consecutive change-ups to the same hitter, moving the pitch around the zone until he gets the result he’s looking for.
“And then there’s the things people don’t see,” Schneider said. “He kills it in the weight room. He’s obsessed with his routine. He’s obsessed with making the other pitchers in the rotation follow what he’s doing. He really leads by example.”
Schneider should know. This season is the first in Borucki’s professional career that Schneider hasn’t been his coach. Through those half-dozen years of diligent work, he’s seen the young lefty’s lowest lows. And Sunday, on an emotional video call in a minor-league clubhouse, he got to see the new big-leaguer at his highest high.
“There’s something about when someone’s been there with you from the beginning. It’s a little bit more emotional,” Borucki said. “Just seeing the smile on his face — it was unbelievable.”
