FAMILY REUNION
Fan favourite Edwin Encarnacion returns to Toronto for the first time since taking wing for Cleveland.
The slugger that got away. The slugger that came back.
Neither doing much slugging at the moment. Sluggish, rather. So, they’re still sharing — existentially. When Edwin Encarnacion walked out on to the field before batting practice, he received a loud and loving reception from the early-bird fans: Eddie! Eddie! Eddie!
Watching, near the Blue Jays dugout, Jose Bautista made clucking sounds. Like a chicken. Perhaps in reference to Double-E’s chicken-wing home-run trot?
Or the Parrot, as some of us knew it. And which Encarnacion has taken to the Indians, albeit only unpacked on five occasions thus far this season. “It’s something I always do whenever I hit a home run. I brought it to Cleveland. They gave him a visa.”
Trailing TV cameras and a horde of reporters, Encarnacion strolled over to Bautista for a man-hug, a bro-clinch, a slugger-to-slugger reunion.
The two Dominicans, so different from each other in personality — one shy and quiet, the other often verbally biting, endlessly in macho overdrive —will be forever joined at the historical hip as Jays, as they were for many years yoked in the lineup, each with his fingerprints all over the team’s offensive records.
Both have sputtering out of the gate in 2017, a familiar state of big-bat-being for Encarnacion, traditionally a slow starter; not so much for Bautista, who went from sizzling at spring training and eminent at the World Baseball Classic to unfathomably cold and strikeout-beleaguered once the real campaign began.
There was poignancy as the two men embraced, and more still in a scoreboard tribute and in Encarnacion’s first at-bat, as he touched his hand to his heart at the crowd’s ovation. He ran out — beat out — an infield single, then prudently decided not to test Bautista’s arm when he reached second, with the Indian and the Jay staring at each other, grinning at each other. With Encarnacion DH-ing, they didn’t otherwise cross paths.
But there is more to the relationship between Bautista and Encarnacion than baseball and eight years as teammates. Bautista says he will love the big, sweet Encarnacion for the rest of his life.
“He’s more than a friend to me now. He’s what I consider a part of my family. A great individual and someone I played alongside for years. You get to appreciate people when that happens. In baseball, that’s a rare thing. It’s not common to see teammates that get to play together six, seven, eight years.
“Part of being a great teammate is helping each other through tough times, dealing with everything we have to deal with as professional athletes nowadays, which is a lot more than in the past — with the technology and social media,” said Bautista.
But, sheesh, it was a funny feeling, Bautista admitted, seeing his pal for the first time in an Indians uniform. Neither of them got what they were expecting in the off-season. Bautista unexpectedly returned to the fold; Encarnacion unexpectedly signed with Cleveland, for less than Toronto had offered. Had management just given Encarnacion a minute longer, allowed him to windowshop, none of this would have happened. Unlikely, though, that he and Bautista would have been 2017 teammates in that scenario either.
“Definitely going to be strange,” Bautista said, pre-game. “Seeing him on the same field with a different uniform.”
They spent countless hours talking hitting, talking pitchers, looking at video together. They spoke the same language, and not just Spanish. And they each did memorable drama the last couple of seasons — from batflip to walk-off jacks. All those images running together in the moments before last night’s American League Championship Series rematch.
“Happy, happy to be back here, really happy,” said Encarnacion, surrounded by dozens of reporters as he emerged through the visitors’ portal. This is the park where he smacked 115 home runs in his Blue Jays tenure. He had two hits but no swats in his return.
“I have a lot of really good memories but what I remember the most is being in the playoffs and our final playoff run.”
It was awkward, he conceded. “It feels really weird, having played six (full) years with them and now to be playing against them.’’
Encarnacion didn’t know, at that point, what to expect from fans. “I hope I receive support. No boooooo.”
There were lots of boos, actually — the warm and fuzzies worn off — by the time Encarnacion came to the plate in the eighth as potentially the tying run. He struck out on a slider from Joe Smith.
He was excited, though, with a sense of coming home, though it’s not home anymore. “This is a city that opened its doors to me and gave me the opportunity to have the career that I’ve had.”
It’s taken a while, severing himself from Toronto emotionally. “It took some time, a few weeks, to understand what happened,” he said, recalling the negotiations rupture with Jays management. “It was difficult because I was hopeful the situation would have been different. But after I took the necessary steps to secure my future with the Indians, it got easier.”
There was nobody to blame, he said.
Oh, but Bautista would like to talk with his compatriot now. “Talking about the game, learning about the game, keeping each other humble, keeping each other on top of our craft, pushing each other.”
Encarnacion, hitting .217 coming into the game, would doubtless feel his pain. Bautista was dragging a .174 average with 42 strikeouts — 10 of them looking — and only 19 walks, where historically his strike-to-walk ration has been around 1:1.
“I’ve not been taking advantage of hitting my pitch when I get it,” Bautista said, self-analyzing. “I feel like that’s been the most common theme throughout. And that’s totally on me, not taking advantage when I amble to put the pitcher in that situation.’’
There is more to it than that, of course. “If I want to analyze it, I’ll be talking for hours. Even more than the fair share of reasons for why this might be happening. But I don’t want to sound like I’m making excuses.”
He will let his bat do the talking. Any day now. Come up, speak up.
“I need to focus on what I need to focus on to get back on track and be myself for the rest of the season. Hopefully then this start will be just that — a slow start.’’
Bautista lifts his eyes again to Encarnacion, an alien venturing into the Toronto dugout.
“He’s just like me. We try to base our success on contributing to our team and not necessarily what our stats look like.”