PITTSBURGH – How ill has George Springer been this week?
“I’m not going to make an excuse for George, but he’s been a little sick for a while, so to get him healthy again and not under the weather has been good,” says Toronto Blue Jays teammate Chris Bassitt. “All of Boston, I was kind of surprised he played a lot of the days that he was playing. I know what George can do – unfortunately, he did it against me, I’ll tell you that.”
Between the viral infection that kept him from the Blue Jays lineup Monday against the Boston Red Sox and lingered for the next three days at Fenway Park, plus some bad luck at the plate in recent weeks, Springer definitely hadn’t been himself.
A home run that ended a 17-game drought in Friday’s 4-0 win over the Pittsburgh Pirates had him feeling a little bit better and the Blue Jays are awaiting him to get on the type of hot streaks that have helped carry the club the past two seasons.
Even after hitting his fourth homer, Springer is still batting .209/.266/.310 for the season, with his average exit velocity down to 86.8 mph from 88.7 a year ago, his hard-hit percentage down to 33.3 per cent from 42.3 and his walk percentage sitting at 6.5 from 9.3.
Still, when he’s hit the ball hard, he often hasn’t had anything to show for it, as of the 30 balls he’s put in play at 97.7 mph or above, 21 have turned into outs. As a result, his batting average is well off his expected batting average of .259, underlining the degree of bad luck at play, too.
“I just think it’s understanding that you are hitting the ball hard, there’s nothing crazy going on,” Springer says of processing the misfortune. “I don’t look for anything crazy … It’s all about staying within and not trying to do too much, not trying to chase hits and keep having a good quality at-bat every time.”
In previous seasons, he’s found himself giving out the same advice he’s now taking, something that’s “definitely a lot easier said than done,” he says. “It’s a lot easier to tell somebody else to stay with it.”
At the same time, “I have a great group of guys in there who have who have had my back this whole time, urging me to keep going. Even though I feel like I’m not necessarily holding up my end of the bargain, I’ve got guys who are on my side and that they believe in me. That’s a good feeling.”
As for playing through the viral infection, Springer has no interest in “complaining about it.”
“I made the decision to play,” he adds. “Yeah, obviously this is a hard game when you’re healthy and it’s even harder if you’re not. But at the end of the day, I owe it to the locker-room, I owe it to our fans to go out and play. If I feel like I can go, I’m going to go and I’m going to give it 100 per cent of whatever I’ve got that day.”
JACKSON’S DECISION
Toward the end of spring training, as it became apparent that Zach Pop was going to claim the final spot in the Blue Jays bullpen, Jay Jackson had a decision to make.
The right-hander, in camp as a non-roster invitee on a minor-league contract, wanted to stay with the Blue Jays because he saw them as legitimate World Series contender and at 35, he’s really ring-chasing. But a release from his contract gave him a chance to look around but four days later on March 29, he signed a major-league deal and was optioned to triple-A Buffalo, waiting for an opening, which arrived Friday when Pop hit the injured list.
“They told me I had a great opportunity here and you look at the team they’ve built,” Jackson said of his thought process before signing back. “Like I told Ross (Atkins, the GM), I saw the moves they made and I saw it as a championship team and I want to be a part of that. I told them, my only goal and the only thing I feel like I’m missing from my resume is a World Series. And this is a team I feel like can accomplish that.
“And so when it came down to weighing the options, it was does the team have a chance to be in the playoffs? Do you have a chance of winning? Am I going to get the opportunity to really play there? Or is it going to be a situation where I’m going to be in the big-leagues and then get sent down, back and forth and not be able to help the team win. Being here, talking to them, it’s a perfect fit ultimately.”
Jackson, a native of Greenville, S.C., has certainly lived a full baseball life, taken in the ninth round of the 2008 draft out of Furman College by the Chicago Cubs, his first of nine big-league organizations. He debuted in the majors with his fourth club, the San Diego Padres, in 2015 and then headed to Japan, spending three years with Hiroshima. He came back and joined the Milwaukee Brewers in 2019, returned to Japan with Chiba for 2020, joined the San Francisco Giants in 2021 and the Atlanta Braves in 2022 before signing with the Blue Jays.
Between his pairing of a mid-90s fastball with an effective slider and engaging positivity, he’s in demand as a minor-league depth arm with some upside. As Atkins noted back on March 29, “he had options, he had a lot of choices and probably could have landed on an opening day roster, too. And I think he really valued being here and wanting to be a part of this team.”
And on his first day with the Blue Jays, Jackson sat in the visitor’s dugout at PNC Park all smiles, reaping the rewards of his decision back in the spring.
“Fantastic. I can’t explain it,” he said of returning to the majors. “Just looking forward to being here and helping get us back in first place and atop this division. I’m here in this beautiful park, beautiful weather. I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else. So it’s just an amazing feeling, once again.”
SHORT HOPS: Zach Pop hit the injured list with a right hamstring strain and for the time being, the Blue Jays want to see how the right-hander responds to treatment before deciding next steps. The right-hander has already appeared in 15 games, earning trust in a mid-game, fire-extinguisher role. … Mitch White’s return from a shoulder injury is on the horizon after throwing 2.2 innings during a rehab outing at triple-A Buffalo this week, although Blue Jays manager John Schneider said the right-hander will make another start with the Bisons. After that, his next steps will be discussed.
