DETROIT — When Tyler Heineman saw Alejandro Kirk take a Wenceel Perez foul tip directly off the facemask in Tuesday’s second inning, he didn’t think too much of it. It was, in his words, “a freakin’ good one,” but he’d seen Kirk withstand shots like those before and carry on. Hell, he’s done it himself too many times to count. So, Heineman went about his typical in-game routine.
But after the bottom of the third inning, Blue Jays manager John Schneider told Heineman to go get ready, as Kirk’s condition was worsening. What didn’t occur to Heineman, as he ducked underneath the dugout to start getting loose and warming up his arm with weighted balls, was that Kirk was due up fourth that inning. And he wasn’t alerted to the matter until Blue Jays bench coach DeMarlo Hale hustled down to tell him he was on deck, just moments before Bo Bichette shot a ball to left, putting two runners in scoring position.
Suddenly, Heineman was in the box against Tarik Skubal, one of the best pitchers on the planet. Incredibly, he drew a walk — only the 16th Skubal had issued in 21 starts this season — which thankfully gave him a chance to breathe at first base and think about how Kevin Gausman might like his game called.
That’s information Heineman typically absorbs during the starting pitcher and catcher’s pre-game meeting. But during Saturday’s meeting, he was tied up in the bullpen with Max Scherzer, who Heineman was scheduled to catch Sunday, drilling the various setups the 41-year-old likes from his catchers. Then, as he crouched behind the plate for his first defensive inning, Heineman’s PitchCom malfunctioned.
“The entire thing was a mess,” said Heineman, who ended up calling pitches the old-fashioned way between his knees. “But that’s honestly good. I wouldn’t have it any other way. It just shows that we can adapt and play through anything that happens.”
That will have to be the mantra for Heineman and the Blue Jays over the next week at least, as Kirk was placed on the 7-day IL with a concussion prior to Sunday’s 10-4 loss to the Detroit Tigers. Losing Kirk was the most notable occurrence for the Blue Jays Sunday, as they struggled to sequence their 10 hits and five walks on a hot Michigan afternoon, before the low-leverage end of Toronto’s bullpen let the wheels come off late.
Tigers starter Jack Flaherty was at his best, averaging 94 m.ph. with his heater while touching 96 and moving it all around the edges of the zone. That kept Blue Jays hitters off balance for curveballs down and strike-to-ball sliders glove-side, as Flaherty struck out seven and walked only one.
The Blue Jays put balls in play, as they do, but couldn’t string hits together, as they’ve done. Bo Bichette went 5-for-5 — seeing a career-high 35 pitches in the process — each hit coming off his bat at 95 m.p.h. or harder. But Addison Barger, Ernie Clement, and Joey Loperfido combined to go 1-for-12 behind him with six strikeouts.
Heineman of all people became the first Blue Jay to touch third base when he advanced on a groundball following his one-out double in the seventh. But George Springer’s first-pitch, 108-m.p.h. drive to deep centre was kept in play by Comerica Park’s spaciousness. The Blue Jays mounted a spirited rally in the ninth, bringing nine batters to the plate and cashing all four of their runs. But they needed more than twice that.
Meanwhile, Max Scherzer threw his best outing yet as a Blue Jay, allowing three runs on three hits and striking out 11 while walking none over seven innings. He threw a season-high 96 pitches and he’d only want one of them back.
It came in the third, as the Tigers ambushed Scherzer to put two runners in scoring position with none out. Remarkably, he got the next two hitters to make shallow flyball outs not deep enough to score a runner, the second requiring a running, over-the-shoulder catch by Bichette. But after falling behind Gleyber Torres, Scherzer left a heater in a bad spot and paid the price, coughing up a long, three-run shot.
Turned out that was all the Tigers needed to halt a six-game losing streak, although they tacked on seven more off Chad Green and Justin Bruhl in a disarrayed eighth. Scherzer, meanwhile, retired his final 13 batters following the Torres homer, striking out eight of them.
Pitching on his 41st birthday, Scherzer pounded the zone all afternoon with a fastball that sat 94 and touched 96, while bringing back the trademark slider that had been mysteriously absent from his arsenal to this point, using it as his top secondary offering to get six whiffs, six fouls, two called strikes, and only one soft-hit ball in play resulting in a groundout.
Oh, well. Contrary to how the Blue Jays have played of late, you can’t win ‘em all. Off to Baltimore, where, one way or another, this upcoming week will be chaotic.
In order to make up a rain-postponed game from earlier this season, the Blue Jays will play the Orioles Monday at 6:35 p.m. ET, Tuesday in a day-night doubleheader, and Wednesday at 12:35 p.m. That’s four games in 42 hours played at an outdoor venue in a city where the daily high temperature is currently forecasted to range from 35-38 degrees C, before humidity. That intensifying effect will make it feel more like 42-45 under the sun.
As the series concludes a stretch of 14 games in 13 days coming out of the all-star break, the Blue Jays have little choice but to use their 27th roster spot on the doubleheader day to carry a pitcher capable of throwing numerous innings. The leading candidates are right-hander Lazaro Estrada, who shone in his MLB debut earlier this month, or left-hander Adam Macko, who pitched his best start of the season at triple-A Buffalo on Thursday.
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Easton Lucas or Paxton Schultz could also be in the mix if the Blue Jays believe they can live with a little less length. But anything fewer than six innings from Chris Bassitt on Monday would likely render those options moot. If Eric Lauer — scheduled to start one of the doubleheader games — has another eight-inning outing in him, that’d be swell.
Never mind that MLB’s trade deadline is at 6 p.m. ET on Thursday, which could create two-way traffic in the Blue Jays clubhouse as the club’s front office seeks to bolster its roster for the final two months of the regular season and October’s playoffs. Most activity occurs in the afternoon of deadline day itself, but when the Blue Jays were last buyers in 2023, they went early and acquired Jordan Hicks 48 hours prior.
All this impending havoc makes the 6.5-game lead the Blue Jays have built atop the AL East particularly nice to have. They can drop games like Sunday’s — even a couple in what will be an exceptionally challenging series in Baltimore — and be fine. A return to their Rogers Centre fortress to play the Kansas City Royals, before heading to Denver to face the moribund Colorado Rockies, awaits at the end of the week.
As for Kirk, he’ll need to clear MLB’s concussion protocol before returning, and in the meantime, it’ll be up to Heineman and Ali Sanchez — selected to the major-league roster from triple-A Buffalo on Sunday — to mitigate the void left by the team’s leader in fWAR and MLB’s leader among catchers in Statcast’s Fielding Run Value.
Heineman has provided immense value in part-time work this season, entering Sunday’s game with 1.9 fWAR and a 149 wRC+ across 38 games. Of course, that offensive production through his first 106 plate appearances is extremely unlikely to be sustained through the next 106, particularly considering Heineman’s .391 BABIP and the wide gap between his actual batting average (.330) and slugging percentage (.495), and his expected ones — .225 and .325, respectively — based on the quality of contact he’s made.
Still, he’s posted plus grades across the board of advanced defensive stats available these days, so he should be able to help make up for the contributions Kirk’s made behind the plate all year. Statcast grades Heineman as a top-10 blocker and top-15 pitch framer — Kirk leads MLB in both categories — to go along with a top-15 average pop time and the quickest average exchange in the league. Heineman can do some things back there.
That was part of the important business that kept Heineman from Saturday’s pre-game meeting between Kirk and Gausman — his set-ups behind the plate for the famously exacting Scherzer. Perhaps you’ve noticed the 18-year veteran leans a touch old-school and likes things done a particular way. That extends to his catchers and how much — or little in this case — they move.
In the modern game, you’ll see catchers bouncing all over the place, moving from one knee to the other, kicking out a leg, feinting a target in one location before slipping to another, reaching out in front of them to go get pitches and massage them into the zone.
But watch a game from Scherzer’s prime and his catchers barely budge from their pre-pitch set-up. It was a different game then. One Scherzer preferred. The video he showed Heineman as an example was of Matt Wieters, who played with Scherzer seven years ago.
“He likes a target that stays where it starts, a quiet target. And he wants to be the one that’s aggressive through the zone.” Heineman said. “As a catcher, it’s a difficult thing to not move nearly as much as you’re accustomed to and not have a late kick-out movement. It’s a different style of catching than I’ve done in probably five years. But I don’t really care. My job is to do the best I can to adapt to what the pitcher wants.”
There’s that word again. Adaptability. It’s one of Heineman’s values — being structured and routine-oriented, yet able to adjust when needed. It doesn’t matter if he’s stepping in cold to face the best pitcher in the world, trying to pitch call while devising a gameplan on the fly, or trying to help cover for the absence of a top-three MLB catcher. He’s prepared himself to be a willow, not an oak. And the wind’s only just picking up.
