DUNEDIN – Gesundheit. Maybe today Kevin Pillar can take stock. Maybe today he can put aside the, um, embarrassment of joining that legendary list of players who have suffered freakish, fluky, spring training injuries and realize how far he has come in a few months.
Think back to June, when Pillar was sent down to triple-A Buffalo by the Toronto Blue Jays after tossing his bat and putting on a bit of a display in the dugout when manager John Gibbons pinch-hit Anthony Gose for him in the eighth inning. It took two months for him to be recalled, plenty of time for a guy who was a 32nd-round pick from a Division II school to wonder if maybe he hadn’t buried himself.
Now, he’s getting a week to 10 days to recover from a Grade 1 oblique strain sustained when he — Gesundheit! Bless you! — hurt himself sneezing.
“I guess it’s good they want to keep me at my best,” Pillar said Sunday.
Of course it is. The Blue Jays can’t just come out and tell Pillar that he’s made the team, but it was suggested to him in a meeting that he put two and two together (mathematics was his major) and realize that he’s — well, yeah, he’s made the team, with close to a team-high 26 at-bats already. Pillar told the Blue Jays he could play through the discomfort, just as he did on Saturday. In essence, he was told he didn’t have to.
“We’re not going good enough to bear grudges … I’m not going good enough to bear grudges,” Gibbons said with a chuckle on Sunday, when asked about last season’s run-in, and how Pillar had rehabilitated his reputation within the organization.
“There’s no grudges in this game. That last year … that was a guy who was frustrated because he wanted to get it done himself. And that’s OK; I like that fire in the belly. But the thing is … you were here as part of a platoon. Your role is your role.”
Pillar could very well be in left field when the Blue Jays open the season at Yankee Stadium. At worst, he’s a fourth outfielder once Michael Saunders gets healthy. Pillar’s tendency to chase pitches has seemed less pronounced this spring, which Gibbons thinks might come from the fact he has added a leg kick to his swing, which seems to leave him better balanced and allows for an easier read of the pitch.
“He’s a damned good outfielder and base runner,” Gibbons said. “His baseball instincts are as good as anybody — anybody — on this team.”
And make no mistake: Pillar is on this team.
KNUCKLING DOWN
We need to re-frame the conversation around whether Russell Martin can catch R.A. Dickey’s knuckleball — which has of course been one of the dominant storylines of the Blue Jays spring. The answer is: of course Martin can handle Dickey’s “capricious animal.”
The question, as general manager Alex Anthopoulos noted this weekend, isn’t whether the game would be a mess with Martin on the field instead of Josh Thole. It’s not about looking at it from the pitcher’s point of view as much as it is from the catcher’s point of view.
“I don’t want Russ to get worn down,” Anthopoulos said, candidly. “It’s wearing on a guy. I mean, the glove’s even heavier. I asked him about it the other day and he said: ‘Dude, don’t worry. I’m a ninja back there.’”
For a point of reference, keep this in mind: J.P. Arencibia did a decent job catching Dickey during the knuckleballer’s first spring here and caught him in the World Baseball Classic that spring, too. But the pairing was a disaster early in the regular season.
Just saying …
WHAT I LEARNED
The things you learn in a week hosting a sports talk show:
“I was one of those kids, 14-years old … who saw the Spinks brothers and realized they were not highly educated but both of those guys won gold medals in 1976. The Spinks brothers represented our family, because we weren’t highly educated — but we worked hard.”
— Former world heavyweight champion Evander (The Real Deal) Holyfield thinks the decline in status of Olympic boxing is one of the contributing factors to the decline of the sport in general.
Evander Holyfield on Prime Time Sports
“We needed to call a time out and re-group the team and make sure the expectations were the same. The fact he was around the team a few days before we shipped him back to Calgary … he did once again a good job of preaching what the coaching staff was saying. We did it before with Mark, now we’ll do it for Mark.”
— Calgary Flames head coach Bob Hartley discusses the resiliency of his team, which holds down seventh place in the Western Conference and has kept body and soul together despite the loss of talisman Mark Giordano due to a torn biceps injury.
Bob Hartley on Prime Time Sports
“If changing the rules is going to help make the MLS teams stronger — and in this case, we’re talking about the Canadian teams — than I’m all for it … if you’re going to do things to help not just Canadian teams but Canadian players which in turn helps the national team. That’s important. We talk all the time in the United States about how MLS helps the national team. Is that a priority? No, but it is part of what they do and it is a by-product of having a successful league. I want Canada to improve. Canada should be better when it comes to the international game.”
— Fox Soccer analyst, former MLS executive and U.S. national team captain Alexi Lalas believes league rules should be changed to allow Canadian players to be counted as domestic players on U.S.-based teams.
Alexi Lalas on Prime Time Sports
QUIBBLES AND BITS
- The New York Rangers are atop the NHL’s Eastern Conference, and who needs Henrik Lundqvist? Cam Talbot has allowed one goal or fewer in four consecutive games and as a whole the Rangers have allowed one goal or fewer in seven consecutive regular-season games for the first time in the franchise’s 89-year history.
- Corporate nicknames like ‘The Hamburglar’ are tacky, but I guess it beats calling Andrew Hammond ‘Hams’ or ‘Hammer.’ At any rate, the best thing about these unexpected little runs — such as Hammond’s 10-0-1 (1.39) start to his NHL career — are that they send people scurrying to the history books to find comparables, and the result is often a fun, eclectic mix.
So here are the list of goalies whom, like the Senators’ Hammond, have also picked up points in their first 11 career starts: Bill Durnan (9-0-2 with the 1943-33 Montreal Canadiens); Ross Brooks (8-0-3 with the 1972-73 Boston Bruins); Bob Froese (10-0-1 with the 1982-83 Philadelphia Flyers); and Patrick Lalime (10-0-1 with the 1996-97 Pittsburgh Penguins).
If Hammond allows fewer than two goals in his next start he will tie the NHL record held by ‘Mr. Zero’ Frank Brimsek, set from Nov. 3-Dec. 27, 1938, with the Boston Bruins.
- Remember when catchers stole bases? Remember when it wasn’t such a Molina-fest? Fangraphs does. Since 1945, Russ Martin of the Blue Jays is seventh on the all-time catchers stolen-base list with 93; his 23 stolen bases in 2007 are the only 20-steal season by a catcher since 2000.
Last season Martin stole four bases, which was enough to tie Jonathan Lucroy and Carlos Ruiz atop the major-league ranks, and that was the lowest stolen-base total since 1945, when Stan Lopata led catchers with four.
Self-preservation has turned into an important part of Martin’s game, but Blue Jays manager John Gibbons can see why Martin has batted all over the order in his career — including lead-off.
“The interesting thing about Russ is he kind of tailors his approach to where he hits in the lineup,” Gibbons said. “There are players who will tell you they’re the same regardless of where they are in the order. But Russ is smart enough and confident enough that he can be a different hitter in different spots.”
THE END GAME
There’s a lot happens in this game, you know? Chad Jenkins picked up the save for the Blue Jays in Saturday’s 1-0 win over a New York Yankees split squad, and for Gibbons and pitching coach Pete Walker the highlight was the fact Jenkins hit Eric Jagielo with a 1-0 pitch to lead off the ninth.
It was a cutter, a pitch the Blue Jays have spent all spring trying to get the right-handed Jenkins to throw to left-handed batters. His reluctance has been frustrating; the organization believes it will be the key to preventing Jenkins, who has always had intriguing stuff, from ultimately becoming a righty-on-righty guy.