TORONTO – Those watching from the third base dugout knew right away that something was up.
It was the bottom of the eighth inning, and Kevin Pillar had just stolen second and third against Yankees reliever Dellin Betances. With two outs, the Blue Jays needed a hit to score Pillar and add to their one-run lead. Unless…
“You could see him coming off third base,” manager John Gibbons recalled, “and it didn’t look normal.”
“You’re thinking ‘he might actually take this base,’” starter Marco Estrada said.
“The key was how far (Brandon) Drury was playing off third base,” said catcher Luke Maile, who watched the play unfold from second. “Once I saw that, I had a sense he was going.”
Pillar bounced around at third base in plain view of the right-handed Betances to see if the four-time all-star would react. He didn’t, and at that moment, preparation and instinct converged. As Betances came set, Pillar took off and stole home.
“It was awesome,” said Estrada.
“That was pretty cool,” said Gibbons.
“I think everyone was a little shocked,” added Justin Smoak.
The steal exposed a key reliever on a rival team and helped the Blue Jays win their first game of the year. It also defied baseball convention in that Betances wasn’t pitching from the full windup, and Pillar had less time to run. As Gibbons remarked, “That’s almost a no-no.” This time it worked, though, as Betances threw wildly to the plate and Pillar scored standing up.
“It was a pretty surreal moment for me,” Pillar said. “There’s a lot of things you dream about doing on the field as a kid getting to the big leagues. As a kid, stealing home is one of those things.”
And yet this wasn’t a purely instinctive play. Conversations with outfielder Curtis Granderson and first base coach Tim Leiper set this play in motion days earlier. On Wednesday, Granderson and Pillar discussed a play they’d seen recently, where 18-year-old Pittsburgh Pirates outfield prospect Lolo Sanchez stole home against a right-handed pitcher.
“He did it pretty easily,” Pillar recalled. “These are things we all talk about and when the opportunity presents itself hopefully you’re prepared enough to try to execute.”
With Leiper, Pillar reviewed the times to the plate and pickoff tendencies for Yankees pitchers. Betances is slow to the plate, which gave Pillar the confidence to steal second and third.
“Sometimes you’ve got to gamble,” he said.
Pillar didn’t say as much, but the calculus on the steal of home must have shifted with Gift Ngoepe at the plate compared to, say, Josh Donaldson. On paper, a utility infielder with 12 big-league hits to his name doesn’t have a great chance against someone who strikes out 15 batters per nine innings. Maybe it would work better to attack Betances’ weakness and run.
Pillar did just that, and once he scored the dugout and crowd erupted. Even from inside the clubhouse, Estrada could hear the fans react.
“You could feel the energy in the stadium,” Pillar said.
“To be honest, I liked it more than my homer,” said Yangervis Solarte through interpreter Josue Peley after hitting his first home run with the Blue Jays. “That’s something you don’t see very often.”
Never before in franchise history, in fact, as Pillar became the first Blue Jays player ever to steal three bases in an inning.
“Glad he did it,” Gibbons said. “I’d love to take credit for it, but I can’t.”
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