TORONTO – Antennas are up around the Toronto Blue Jays over Aaron Judge’s curious, if not outright suspicious, mid-at-bat glances to his right, which is to be expected for a sport still in the shadow of the Houston Astros’ sign-stealing scandal.
What exactly the New York Yankees slugger was doing during his eighth-inning at-bat Monday, when Sportsnet broadcast cameras caught him looking sideways before Jay Jackson delivered a pitch at least twice, including before his second homer of the night, wasn’t immediately clear.
Blue Jays manager John Schneider described it as “kind of odd that a hitter would be looking in that direction” and added that “he’s obviously looking in that direction for a reason,” which Judge said was to quiet teammates still chirping home-plate umpire Clint Vondrak, who had just ejected manager Aaron Boone.
That’s plausible enough although given that the Yankees were fined for using electronic devices to decode and share signs in 2015 and 2016, the incident is sure to renew questions about exactly how much illicit activity still remains in the game.
One immediate theory shared by a former player is that Judge was either looking to first base coach Travis Chapman, or someone else at the far end of the visitors’ dugout, who could have been relaying location based on how catcher Alejandro Kirk was setting up.
The Yankees – like the Boston Red Sox, who in 2017 were found by MLB to have used smart watches to help illegally identify and transmit signs after the Yankees filed a complaint, and committed replay-room infractions in 2018 – have a rep and this will only reinforce that.
“First time I’ve seen that,” Schneider said of Judge looking sideways, adding later that the Blue Jays planned to “dive into it a little bit more tonight and tomorrow and just make sure that we’re doing everything that we can to not make ourselves susceptible to tendencies or location or pitches or anything like that. But it is kind of odd to see him looking over there right before a pitch came.”
Odd as it may be, whether it was fair game or not is another matter.
Peaking back at the catcher is a no-no, but Judge pretty clearly is glancing to his right.
That suggests the first base coach or the far end of the dugout, where he could have been searching for a visual cue, like a hand on the railing. The former player recalled how some teams used to whistle certain ways for certain locations before catchers caught on.
If they are relaying information gleaned from a catcher setting up too early without the help of technology, that would be on the catcher. Or perhaps from an infielder wearing a PitchCom receiver turned up too loud, allowing a baserunner or base coach to overhear the upcoming pitch, although Blue Jays players make a habit of keeping their volumes low.
But there’s a fine line between trying and cheating, especially as baseball tries to leave the Astros mess in the past.
The affable Jackson, who learned of Judge’s glances via a text message from his fiancée, made a point of saying “I’m not going to say anything against any other organizations or anything like that,” but then conceded his didn’t know what to make of how long Judge was looking over.
“I really haven’t seen hitters do that, so I can’t say what he was really doing,” said Jackson. “During the game, I don’t pay attention to it as much. I just try to go out there and throw strikes. After he hit the home run, went in to watch the video to see more where the pitch was compared to like if he was doing anything funky. And it wasn’t a bad pitch. For me, for it to get hit that hard, maybe there is something there, but I also threw six sliders in a row. He could have been sitting on it.”
Jackson also relayed how former teammate Darwin Barney, an infielder who played for the Blue Jays from 2015-17, would take his eyes off the pitcher, blink and then reset his gaze to counter some focus issues.
This was different.
“Me being me, if I’m throwing my slider and I know it’s good, even if he knows it’s coming, he shouldn’t be able to hit it hard,” said Jackson after Toronto’s 7-4 loss. “Things happen. We’ll see what plays out from this and next time we’ll have a different game plan.”
Worth watching Tuesday is whether the Blue Jays do as well, or whether Judge’s explanation along with their own internal examination puts the issue to rest.
“There was a lot of chirping from our dugout which I really didn’t like it in the situation that we’re in, 6-0 game, Booney got tossed,” Judge replied when asked by Sportsnet colleague Ben Nicholson-Smith what he was looking at. “I was trying to save Booney by calling timeout, like hey, hold up here. Let me work here. I was kind of trying to see who was chirping in the dugout. It was 6-0, Booney got tossed and let’s go to work.”
Boone, who saw the discussion Sportsnet broadcasters Dan Shulman and Buck Martinez had about Judge during their call of the game, echoed those words, saying, “there was some chirping going from our side, obviously, when I got thrown out and then it continued. I think a lot of our guys were still letting them hear it and Judge was kind of looking over like, ‘I’m hitting here.’”
Maybe, but baseball has too much recent history with sign-stealing for Judge and the Yankees to simply get the benefit of the doubt. It’s possible nothing happened or that the Blue Jays weren’t being careful enough, the Yankees picked up on it and capitalized. But they’re on guard for the slippery slope of bad alternatives from there.
