OAKLAND, Calif. — During the third inning Saturday evening, Cavan Biggio hit a single, arrived at first base and found Luis Hurtado coaching there instead of Mark Budzinski. What’s going on, he asked?
No one was quite yet sure at that point, but a couple of innings later word that Budzinski’s 17-year-old daughter Julia had died in a boating accident had spread, instant shock and heartache right along with it.
“I’m going up for my third at-bat and it was a meaningless at-bat, it felt like. I’d never had that feeling before in my life,” Biggio recalled. “It’s a big-league game, playing against a great team and not really a whole lot of baseball went through my head at that point. Definitely something like that offers a little perspective and makes you look back into your corner. My mind and heart immediately went to Mark and his family.”
Compartmentalizing the sorrow and anguish was nearly impossible for the Toronto Blue Jays in finishing out that 11-5 loss to the Tampa Bay Rays on Saturday and it wasn’t any easier Sunday or Monday, when they opened a series against the Oakland Athletics with a listless 5-1 loss.
Baseball doesn’t stop, which can make playing games a needed escape from reality or coming to terms with the incomprehensible even harder. Charlie Montoyo learned that the hard way back when his son Alex was in hospital fighting for his life and he scrambled from Durham Bulls games to be by his side.
Some of that hit him when he learned of Julia’s death and handed the reins over to bench coach John Schneider so he could care for Budzinski in the clubhouse.
“That’s what I felt the other day when I had to tell Mark to go inside so he can find out the news,” said Montoyo. “I said, ‘OK, I’m done with that game, it’s more important to be with my friend.’”
Two Sundays earlier, the Montoyo and Budzinski families had been together for morning Mass at the dome and, “Julia was actually hanging with Alex the whole day,” said Montoyo, who added the strength of Budzinski’s belief was apparent immediately after.
“Some people can say that, but then to see it when something like that happens, he is (a man of faith),” said Montoyo. “He is strong in the way how he dealt with it and writing a note to the team going through that, about keeping it going and I’ll see you soon and all that stuff, that’s unbelievable.”
Montoyo remained down Sunday “and you could tell everybody felt it.”
There wasn’t much energy for the Blue Jays on Monday, either, with Manoah allowing three runs in the first, one on a Stephen Vogt sacrifice fly and two more on an Elvis Andrus double just past a diving Matt Chapman.
Alejandro Kirk’s RBI single in the fourth hinted at a rally, but solo shots by Ramon Laureano in the fifth and Vogt leading off the sixth pushed the game out of reach.
