NEW YORK — Playing at Yankee Stadium is pretty close to a home game for Joey Loperfido, so when his unexpected trade to the Toronto Blue Jays meant a bonus visit to the Bronx this weekend, he suddenly found himself surrounded by family and friends. “I’ve got a ton of people here,” said the Philadelphia-born, Haddonfield, N.J.-raised outfielder. “It should be fun to have everyone around.”
Especially with the 25-year-old still acclimating to his new team, new life, delivering a pair of hits, scoring twice and starting a well-executed 7-6-2 relay to cut down a run at home Friday in an 8-5 victory over the New York Yankees. For someone very routine-oriented, he’s absorbed lots of change over the past five days, from an emotional parting with the Houston Astros to priority player for the Blue Jays. “It definitely gets you out of your comfort zone,” he said, “but all you can really do is embrace it.”
“It’s different,” he continued. “But I think you’ve got to also recognize the good that can come from change like that. And I’m just excited. At first a little bit surprised, and then once I got over to Baltimore, met the team and got to play my first game here, it’s hard not to be excited about the opportunity.”
The feeling is mutual on the Blue Jays’ end and manager John Schneider made a point of expressing “our enthusiasm in him,” upon his arrival to help ease the transition. Acquired along with right-hander Jake Bloss and bat-first infielder Will Wagner for Yusei Kikuchi on Monday, the outfielder is an intriguing blend of speed, power and fast-twitch athleticism and he’s going to get some run over the next two months.
His ability shone through in his first two trips up, when he banged a pitch from Marcus Stroman off the centre-field wall for a triple in the first, promptly cashed in by a Vladimir Guerrero Jr. single that extended the all-star first baseman’s hit streak to 15 games, and then flared a splitter to left for a base hit in the third. Strikeouts in the fourth, sixth innings and eighth innings underlined an area of concern about him, the amount of swing and miss leading to a K ratio near 37 per cent.
“I think he knows where he stands with this group and he wants to go out and show what he’s got,” said Schneider. “There may be some adjustments along the way and I think he’s really open to those … so there’s probably a little bit less pressure to go out and get it fixed all at once.”
The Blue Jays have some ideas for him but “you don’t want to come in and overload and say, ‘Hey, we’re going to fix you,’” said Schneider. “We’ve got to see what he’s about, see what his thoughts are. You don’t want to just shove stuff down his throat. We have a few thoughts in mind. And you have to deliver that and have him process it the right way.”
Schneider has also, in recent days, worked to ensure his veteran players process the Blue Jays’ approach to the trade deadline the right way. He met with Guerrero, George Springer, Daulton Varsho, Alejandro Kirk, Jose Berrios, Kevin Gausman, Chris Bassitt and Chad Green to explain “that we’re still going out and trying to win, we are not like a totally rebuilding team right now,” and “our intention next year is to be right back in the area in this division to win.”
“They had a few questions and the personalities of those guys are so good where they got it and they’re on board,” Schneider continued. “The young guys, they’re going to play, but making sure that they’re doing the right things day-after-day with their work, how they’re handling each game situation. It’s up to us as coaches to really bear down on some of those guys and make sure that they’re learning along the way. And it’s up to the veteran guys to make sure that they’re getting acclimated the way they should.”
Some of that is simple example-setting, like the way Gausman grinded through 4.2 innings of bend-but-don’t-break ball against the Yankees, allowing five runs, four earned, two of them on a monster 477-foot homer by Aaron Judge in the first.
He gave up eight hits and walked three but managed to keep an inning from fully unravelling on him. Asked how he felt about what heard during the meeting, Gausman declined to get into details, saying “that’s between me and Schneids and the guys that were in that room.”
“But there is a plan and so that’s where we’re at, that was kind of what the meeting was about” Gausman added. “Right now, it’s about winning ballgames and winning as many games as we can, however many we have left. It’s about setting expectations for the young guys and those things. I think everybody came out of that feeling better because the last couple of days before (the deadline) were pretty rough.”
A good night at the plate against Stroman helped, Ernie Clement building on Guerrero’s RBI single in the first with a two-run double later in the inning and adding an RBI single in the third, when Brian Serven delivered a two-run single. Spencer Horwitz added RBI singles in the third and sixth innings.
Loperfido is no stranger to adjustments, making a big one to his swing after the 2021 season, when he was drafted in the seventh-round out of Duke by Houston and hit .116/.276/.261 in 87 plate appearances with low-A Fayetteville.
Both the Astros and his swing coach from home felt he needed to bulk up but also that he needed to “condense down and refine my swing and my move in the box.”
“My swing that had a lot of moving parts to it, a big toe tap,” he continued. “We came up with a plan to try and get the most out of my body and do it as simple as possible. The results weren’t immediate. It definitely felt weird. You’re so used to doing things one way that when you start to experiment, it can be a little bit challenging at first.”
But as the 2022 season went along, his progress really picked up and he hit .316/.408/.492 in 108 games between low and high A. Last year, between double and triple-A, he hit .278/.370/.510 with 25 homers and 27 stolen bases and broke through this year.
Thanks to that initial adjustment to his swing, “I felt like I was on time on pitches in the zone I wanted to hit, wanted to drive,” he said. “As soon as you see it translate on the field, you just start to develop more trust in what you’re doing and how you prepare.”
As he adapts to a new team, a new environment and new staff, he’ll be looking for more of the same.
