Friday, August 29

TORONTO -- This is the George Springer the Blue Jays dreamed of.

In January 2021, general manager Ross Atkins and president and CEO Mark Shapiro hunched over laptop screens to announce the biggest signing in franchise history, the six-year, $150 million deal with Springer that signaled to the rest of baseball that the Blue Jays were about to make the jump. 

It was the type of signing that deserved a glitzy press conference with handshakes, hugs and clicking cameras all around. Those were still COVID days, though, so Springer sat in front of a laptop, too, and spoke about the Blue Jays’ young core of Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Bo Bichette and a few other names who are long gone. Nearly five years have passed now, full of a few highs, a pair of postseason heartbreaks and a 2024 season that looked like the beginning of Springer’s end -- but suddenly, a renaissance. 

Tuesday night, Springer launched a home run to left field that left everyone frozen and staring into the sky. Then, he hit another. His first soared a Statcast-projected 433 feet, the next 445. The last Blue Jays player to hit two home runs farther than 430 feet in the same game was Guerrero -- his first two in the Major Leagues, for which you need to reach back before Springer’s days to May 14, 2019.

In a season of surprises, Springer has been the Blue Jays’ stunner. He’s batting .303 with 24 home runs and a .932 OPS. He’s this team’s heartbeat again, the one who sets its identity with how he rounds third base just as much as these towering homers. It’s all about what comes next, though. 

The Blue Jays brought Springer to Toronto to have one more moment in the postseason. The 2017 World Series MVP with the Astros came to this city with a rep for showing up in the game’s biggest moments, the owner of 19 postseason home runs in 63 career games with Houston. Springer looks like that player again, like someone capable of standing still in a shaking stadium and delivering a moment we’ll talk about forever. 

Springer is defying the game’s aging curve through all of this. In most jobs, 35 could still make you the young guy in the office, but this is Major League Baseball. Everything is supposed to be slowing down by now, but Springer is speeding up again.

“It’s confidence. I thought that last year, he was very defensive,” said teammate Chris Bassitt. “I give all the credit to him working really, really hard with the hitting coaches and changing that thought process. The guy I faced in Houston was just one of the best hitters in the world, obviously. You had a lot of good guys on those teams as well, but he was constantly on the attack. Looking at it now, how he’s planned it, I see that type of hitter with confident swings. I don’t ever feel like he’s on his heels.”

The Blue Jays have worked all season to design the perfect plan for Springer, too. There’s the hitting resurgence, of course, with plenty of credit due to the hitting staff of David Popkins, Lou Iannotti and Hunter Mense, but this staff has also worked to pace their vet. He’s operated as a near-full-time DH lately, but his starts in left field on Monday and Tuesday are nothing random. The 59 starts at DH this season have allowed Springer to stay fresh, which you see in every aspect of his game. 

Now that the stakes are getting higher by the day, the Blue Jays will roll out Springer in the field more often. This is their shot at fielding the best lineups possible every single night, and if Anthony Santander surprises everyone by returning late in 2025 to give this lineup another jolt, that keeps the DH seat vacant for his power bat.

“Going back a couple of months, he should have made the All-Star team, and he just continues to do it,” manager John Schneider said Tuesday. “We’ve joked with him about, ‘Can you still put up these numbers when you’re playing the field?’ I think yesterday and today back that up. George has been so good. He’s been so consistent. I’m just really happy for him, personally, to have this bounce-back year.”

It’s amazing that the 35-year-old Springer and the 41-year-old Max Scherzer hold so much power at this point in the season, but 2025 just keeps surprising us. 

We all knew that Springer could do this, but it felt like it was gone. He’s back, though, and one more big moment is waiting for him.

It feels like we’ve had good reason to use the “biggest series of the season” tag a few different times this season, doesn’t it? Well, add another. 

The Milwaukee Brewers come to town Friday for three games of what could be a World Series preview. The Brewers are the best team in baseball after an incredible run through July and August, blowing right past the Blue Jays and everyone else. Toronto has lost some momentum playing down to lesser opponents recently, so this is its shot at playing up to another headliner. 

Shane Bieber is on the mound for the opener Friday followed by Kevin Gausman and Scherzer over the weekend, so everything about this series screams postseason. Tickets are available here for all three games. 

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