By Kaitlyn McGrath, Jen McCaffrey and Lauren Merola
BOSTON — Under sunny skies on Monday afternoon, 112-year-old Fenway Park bore witness to a bit more history.
Danny Jansen had been at the plate for the Toronto Blue Jays on June 26 in a game against the Boston Red Sox with one on and one out in an 0-1 count, when the skies opened up and the game was suspended for severe weather.
Fast forward two months and the game resumed Monday, but with Jansen now playing for the Red Sox. The Red Sox traded for Jansen on July 27, setting up the possibility of one player appearing in the same game for both teams.
The possibility became reality on Monday.
With Jansen substituted into the game to catch for the Red Sox, he settled in behind the plate, for an at-bat in which he’d started as the batter. (Boston’s original catcher in the game, Reese McGuire had been designated for assignment shortly after the team traded for Jansen.)
With Jansen behind the plate, the Blue Jays subbed Daulton Varsho into the game to take over Jansen’s original 0-1 plate appearance. Varsho struck out, fouling off the first pitch from Nick Pivetta and swinging through the second. (If the count had been two strikes, it would have been credited to Jansen’s line, but instead went to Varsho.) Following the strikeout, the runner on first took off for second and Jansen’s throw tailed into center. But Will Wagner followed with a strikeout to end the inning.
“At first, I didn’t really think of it that much,” Jansen said of the possibility of playing for both teams before the game. “But now here we are and it’s going to be a cool moment, especially when it’s all said and done, to look back on and it’s such a strange thing that’s happening but I’m grateful to have the opportunity to do it and it’s going to be cool.”
Pinch-Hitting for Danny Jansen: Daulton Varsho
Now Catching: Danny Jansen
🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯 pic.twitter.com/PXnVZvbpml
— Toronto Blue Jays (@BlueJays) August 26, 2024
The Blue Jays came out on top, 4-1, in the game that took two months to complete. Toronto broke a scoreless tie in the seventh on a solo home run by George Springer. The Blue Jays added three more runs in the eighth on doubles by Vladimir Guerrero, Jr. and Addison Barger. Jarren Duran’s solo homer in the bottom of the eighth accounted for the Red Sox’s only run. Jansen finished the game 1 for 4, with all four of his official at-bats coming as a member of the Red Sox.
Before the game, the Red Sox released their revised lineup, with Jansen slotted in to bat seventh and Triston Casas now batting eighth, where McGuire was hitting in the original lineup. Normally a starter, Pivetta took over on the mound for Kutter Crawford in what will officially be considered a relief appearance.
Game 1, Red Sox vs. Blue Jays: Duran CF, Hamilton 2B, Abreu RF, Devers 3B, Refsnyder LF, Yoshida DH, Jansen C, Casas 1B, Rafaela SS, Pivetta P
— Jen McCaffrey (@jcmccaffrey) August 26, 2024
The Blue Jays had to replace five players from the original lineup who are no longer available, including traded players and shortstop Bo Bichette, who is on the IL.
The resumption of the game creates several other wrinkles beyond Jansen’s double-duty.
For example, both Leo Jiménez and Wagner made their MLB debuts after June 26. Still, since they’ll appear in the suspended game that will go in the record books as having taken place on June 26, they’ll have appeared in a game before they arrived in the majors.
“We’re going in a DeLorean,” Blue Jays manager John Schneider joked recently, referencing the car best known for traveling back in time in the film “Back to the Future.”
This has happened before. The Athletic’s Jayson Stark wrote recently how in 2018, Juan Soto debuted before he debuted. “He arrived in the big leagues, with the Washington Nationals, on May 20. But he later played in a game that had been suspended on May 15 — and homered. Which means he debuted before he debuted and also homered before his first homer,” Stark wrote.
Meanwhile, the Blue Jays went to their bench late to insert Joey Loperfido as a defensive replacement, meaning he was technically in two places at once. On June 26, the outfielder was still with the Houston Astros and went 0-for-3 with a hit-by-pitch in a 7-1 win against the Colorado Rockies. Since he played left field in the final two innings, he’ll go down on paper as playing two games on the same day.
The Red Sox moved to 67-63 on the season, while the Blue Jays are 64-68.
Required reading
(Photo: G Fiume / Getty Images)
