CHICAGO — When gritty Blue Jays catcher Alejandro Kirk takes himself out of the game, Toronto knows it’s not good. After he did just that in the 10th inning on Friday, things for Toronto got immediately worse.
Kirk was struck on the thumb of his glove (left) hand on a foul tip off the bat of Chicago’s Austin Hays when the ball bounced behind home plate and ricocheted with heavy spin, hitting his hand area. The Blue Jays training staff raced onto the field and Kirk walked off with them, holding the injured hand, after removing himself.
Blue Jays manager John Schneider said after the team’s 5-4 loss that Kirk was undergoing X-rays and the extent of his injury and status going forward were up in the air.
“It’s more thumb,” Schneider, a former catcher himself, said. “It sucks. That hurts, especially on a cold day. So just hoping that it’s nothing serious. He’s about as tough as they come, so for him to come out, you don’t love it.”
Kirk’s injury kicked off a dizzying turn of events that flipped the game. Toronto led 4-3 after scoring in the top of the 10th and there was one out in the bottom half of the inning with ghost runner Miguel Vargas on third. Hays struck out against Blue Jays closer Jeff Hoffman after Kirk was replaced by backup Tyler Heineman.
Derek Hill, who entered the game as a pinch-runner in the eighth inning, then bunted for a base hit on a soft offering up the line, a ball perfectly placed so that Heineman had to make a bang-bang play on it. Hill appeared to have Heineman’s throw beaten out but the toss went wide of the bag and dribbled into right field, scoring Vargas with the tying run and sending Hill to second.
Chicago manager Will Venable had encouraged Hill to bunt “if they’re playing back” and the decision and the style of bunt Hill executed were both influenced by Toronto’s unexpected change at catcher.
“Like, (Venable) said, if they’re playing back, and you got a new guy coming in, you never know,” Hill said. “Put the ball in play and good things happen. I just wanted to try and get it a little bit down the third base side.”
One pitch later, Chicago’s Tristan Peters stroked a single to right, plating Hill for the game-winner, making him the object of the White Sox’s postgame jubilation. But in the clubhouse, the talk was about Kirk’s injury and Hill’s bunt.
“It’s tough play for a catcher, especially coming in right there cold,” Schneider said. “(Heineman) was ready to go. We know Hill is a bunt threat.”
According to Schneider, if Kirk, a two-time All-Star, has to miss time, he’d likely be replaced on the roster by Brandon Valenzuela, a 25-year-old who started the season in Triple-A and is on Toronto’s 40-man roster. Valenzuela has yet to make his big league debut.
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