Tuesday night was just the latest impressive act in an incredible turnaround season for the Toronto Blue Jays’ George Springer.
Springer was hit by a pitch in the top of the first inning against the Pittsburgh Pirates, perhaps as restitution for the two teams’ bench-clearing incident on Monday. Instead of escalating the situation, Springer simply waited a couple of innings, then launched a home run off pitcher Mitch Keller his next time up.
The blast was Springer’s 20th of the season, and it set the tone for a 7-3 Blue Jays win. Toronto maintained its five-game lead atop the American League East with 35 games to play.
Before the season, Springer looked like an ankle weight on the Blue Jays’ payroll, with two more years on his deal valued at $50 million in total. Now, he’s turned the clock all the way back to his prime, when he made three All-Star appearances in a row from 2017 to 2019.
Blue Jays manager John Schneider made it clear on Tuesday night that Springer’s resurgence has had a massive impact on Toronto’s worst-to-first turnaround from last year to this year.
“He sets the tone,” said Schneider, per Keegan Matheson of MLB.com. “Whether it’s hitting home runs, grinding out at-bats, advancing on a dirt ball, scoring from first, stealing a base, he’s the epitome of what we’re doing.
“I can’t speak highly enough of him, the way he’s going about this and the way other guys are responding to what he’s doing.”
Springer is slashing .292/.383/.514 in 105 games this season, his best OPS in a season of at least 100 games since 2019, when he finished seventh in American League Most Valuable Player voting.
Suddenly, it doesn’t look like there’s any chance Toronto will try to salary dump him ahead of the final year on his contract. The 35-year-old is the only position player on the Blue Jays’ roster with a World Series ring, and he undoubtedly has plans to lead them to another.
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