Seeing Danny Jansen in a different uniform is unsettling.
Not just because the 29-year-old catcher — who was drafted by the Blue Jays in 2013 and reached the majors five years later — was ÎÚÑ»´«Ã½’s longest-tenured player when he was traded to Boston two months ago, but because of what the sight of him in red and blue represents.
And yes, the Jays were also wearing red and blue Wednesday night when they snapped a five-game losing streak in their City Connect uniforms with a 6-1 win over the Red Sox at the Rogers Centre, a game that featured Jonatan Clase’s first big-league homer and Vladimir Guerrero Jr.‘s 196th and 197th hits of the season. But you know what I mean.
It wasn’t supposed to be this way.
The future appeared bright, and then the positive test changed everything.
The Jays and Red Sox weren’t supposed to be playing out the string in the season’s final week. Jansen and seven other veterans weren’t supposed to have been scattered across the majors at the trade deadline. The Jays were supposed to be getting set for their fourth post-season in five years, not finishing last for the third time in the 21st century.
Seeing Jansen here in the visitors dugout embodies all of that.
“You go into a season, you’re not expecting to have a subpar first half,” the Jays’ longtime catcher said before Wednesday’s series finale, in a conversation that can be heard on this week’s episode of “Deep Left Field,†the Star’s baseball podcast.
“As players, we obviously didn’t want that, but that’s just how baseball goes sometimes ... Some things just didn’t work out.”
Jansen has always been an understated type, so it’s no surprise that his wrap on what has been called a season from hell around the Jays clubhouse is that things “didn’t work out.”
He came back to a hero’s welcome with a video tribute after the top of the first inning in Monday’s series opener (in which he didn’t play), then a standing ovation from a crowd of 29,178 — the biggest of the series — before his first at-bat Tuesday night.
“It was definitely special to see the video, and the reaction from the fans definitely meant a lot,” Jansen said.
So did the reaction from Alejandro Kirk, who took over as the Jays’ No. 1 catcher when Jansen was shipped out. Not only did Kirk step toward the mound when Jansen came to the plate for the first time, allowing the crowd extra time to welcome back a favourite son, but he also joined in the applause as the ovation grew louder.
The gestures were appreciated.
“Kirky’s my guy,” Jansen said with a big smile. “I’ve been through a lot with Kirk, seen him develop and grow into the player that he is. He’s just an outstanding dude, an outstanding player.”
When Kirk came back to the plate and got into his crouch, he said: “Welcome back, man.” That put a smile on Jansen’s face as he dug in against Jays right-hander Bowden Francis, before grounding out on the seventh pitch of the at-bat.Â
“It was awesome,” said Jays skipper John Schneider — who managed Jansen in Class-A ball in 2017 as well as in the majors — of the scoreboard tribute to his former charge. “If there’s anyone that’s deserving of that, it’s Jano for what he’s accomplished in this organization, what he’s done in this community and what he’s done in this clubhouse.”
Jansen picked up a pair of singles Tuesday, one each against relievers Ryan Burr and Chad Green, who he had caught a combined 17 times this season.
“It felt good,” said Jansen, a career .500 hitter as a visitor in ÎÚÑ»´«Ã½. “It’s been a wild season for me with the bat. I’ve definitely had some ups and downs. But it was nice to keep staying in each at-bat, competing and getting a couple of hits.”
With the Jays’ worst season in years winding down, Chris Bassitt joins us to talk about where
After starting the season on the injured list with a broken wrist suffered when hit by a pitch in a Grapefruit League game, Jansen has played in 90 games — the most since 2019, his first full season in the majors. He belted a career-high 17 home runs last year, but has only nine this season and is batting just .195 with the Red Sox. He didn’t get to the plate in Wednesday’s series finale.
It hasn’t been the season he hoped to have going into his first crack at free agency, but in a thin market for catchers he should still have plenty of suitors. Jansen says he hasn’t thought about that as he’s tried to stay in the moment with his new team, one that was mathematically eliminated from playoff contention with Wednesday’s loss.
This week, with his wife and two kids in town, that moment was a trip back to where it all began.
“They wanted to come back and see everybody from before, see the tribute video and stuff like that,” said Jansen. “It was a special moment that I got to share with my family that I’ll never forget.”
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