By Matt Antaya
Winning seems easy some nights.
This past week reminds us that any team striving for greatness must find a way to win even when it doesn’t seem easy.
The injury bug has paid a visit to Toronto and it decided to take two of the Jays’ biggest names out of the lineup. Canadian-born fan favourite Brett Lawrie fractured the index finger on his right hand after being hit by a pitch for the third time in five days. He will likely miss six weeks, leaving the Jays to sort out their infield plans with utility men Juan Francisco, Munenori Kawasaki, and Steve Tolleson.
Still reeling from the loss of Lawrie, the team’s “face of the franchise,” Jose Bautista, also succumbed to injury. While trying to race out a bunt, Bautista stretched awkwardly towards first base and aggravated his left hamstring. Though the injury appears less serious than Lawrie’s (manager John Gibbons says Bautista is day-to-day, though he may require 4-5 games rest), this is no time to lose the team’s most consistent hitter. Let’s hope that all-star hamstrings heal quicker than most.
The Jays won their first of four games against the struggling Chicago White Sox on Thursday. The Jays have gone 4-6 in their last 10 games, but their offense is showing signs of a return to form. This series against the last-place White Sox should provide an opportunity to continue that recovery and win some ball games.
On Canada Day, the Jays will host the Milwaukee Brewers, who currently sit atop the NL Central. If you manage to locate tickets to Tuesday’s sold-out 1:00pm game, you’ll enjoy various activities and treats at the Rogers Centre. And you just know they’re going to unfold that ginormous flag…
Insider Stuff
Infielder Steve Tolleson is relieved after a week filled with multiple scares. Tolleson, who had corrective eye surgery in 2009, began experiencing ‘dry eye’ and blurred vision over the weekend. During a visit to the optometrist on Monday, he was told that patients who receive laser eye surgery before the age of 30 sometimes experience issues, as their eyes have not finished growing. He was prescribed contact lenses to correct the vision issues, and thought the problem was resolved.
However, 24 hours later, an allergic reaction to the contact lenses left Tolleson in an even worse state. With his eyes irritated and vision even blurrier, Tolleson was in no form to play baseball. Luckily the cause was quickly identified – before things got too far out of hand. Tolleson arrived at batting practice Thursday sporting a new pair of rimless glasses and claimed that a more stylish pair will be delivered soon. The allergic irritation has been remedied, and his vision has returned to normal. Over the off-season, Tolleson plans to have another laser procedure to return his eyes to their corrected state.
Buzzword of the Week: “Platoon”
The platoon system is a strategy built upon the idea that a batter will perform better against a pitcher of the opposite handedness. In other words, right-handed batters hit better against left-handed pitching. And similarly, left-handed batters hit better against right-handed pitching. This explains why being a ‘switch hitter‘ (a batter who can hit from both sides of the plate) is such an advantage – you simply choose to bat left or right based on the handedness of the pitcher.
When a manager employs a ‘platoon’, he has two players of opposite handedness share time at a given position. Whether the opposing pitcher is right-handed or left-handed will determine which of them will start that game. If the starting pitcher is replaced mid-game with a relief pitcher of the opposite hand, the other platoon player will likely be called upon to sub for his counterpart.
Given the limited space on the team roster, using two different players at every position is not practical. Therefore platoons are only employed where a clear advantage (or perhaps disadvantage) is identified for a pair of players.
A Toronto-themed example would be Jays’ DH/1B Adam Lind, who only finds himself in the lineup against right-handed pitchers. Lind’s stats reveal that he is clearly less effective against lefties. When the team faces a left-handed starter, Lind is given the day off and a right-handed batter will take his place in the lineup. However, he may be called upon to bat in the late innings once a right-handed reliever has entered the game.
So what have you learned?
The Jays are proving that they want to win – circumstances be damned. Brett Lawrie’s broken finger will take six weeks, while Bautista’s hamstring is day-to-day. Steve Tolleson can see clearly now, and just in time for a visit from the first-place Milwaukee Brewers to celebrate the country’s 147th birthday. We recommend asking your boss if they’d be willing to platoon you at your position with another co-worker – it’d leave more time for golf. Though unlike in baseball, they might not award you a full-time paycheck for part-time work. Better to keep developing your switch-hitting and we’ll meet back next Friday with both left-handed and right-handed pitches on the best damn (and only) ball club north of the border.
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