It was a different feeling for the Blue Jays’ José Berríos but a familiar result in his first game against his old team

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This article was published 19/09/2021 (1500 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A little disorientation was to be expected.

After all, José Berríos had started 135 games for Minnesota and truly figured he would be a Twins lifer.

That all changed on July 30.

Now here he was on Sunday afternoon, facing his old team, his only team before the Blue Jays wrangled his fealty at the trade deadline. It was discombobulating, even as he slightly saluted every former teammate who stepped into the batter’s box with a bitsy I-see-you nod and wry smiles.

Hail fellows, well met.

It happens all the time in sports — pack your bags and adios. It’s never easy.

“Weird. Different,” Berríos said of the peculiar sensations and his core contribution to a 5-3 Toronto victory. ““All day long, from the first feel of the game to the last one.”

Weird, different, from the view of the visitors’ dugout, too. Minnesota manager Rocco Baldelli admitted he had never imagined such a thing when the season was young.

“I would not have anticipated it in any way. Facing José on the other side of the field? But here we are.”

If the Twins had an insider bead on Berríos, it didn’t prove terribly beneficial. The two most significant hits he surrendered in a four-hit performance were to rookies with whom he was not very familiar — a double to Nick Gordon in the fourth inning that put a pair of runs on the board and a solo jack by Ben Rortvedt in the seventh, on his 100th and last pitch.

Not that the Twins had expected any kindness, of course.

“He’s a competitive person but obviously he knows who he’s facing,” said Baldelli. “He’s facing people he’s very close to, people he has relationships with, has known forever.

“I’ve seen people barely acknowledge the people on the other side of the field. That was not José today. He made a point to basically acknowledge every one of his teammates, guys in the dugout, guys going to the plate. And was still able to focus. He threw a good game.”

The manager in the home dugout was certainly appreciative, as Toronto won a seventh straight series, taking two of three off the Twins over the weekend, thickening the second wild-card wedge over the Yankees — pounded 11-1 by Cleveland — to a game and a half. Nowhere near room enough to breathe easy but the two clubs have been on diametrically reversed trajectories in recent weeks.

“He joined the club,” grinned the Jays’ Charlie Montoyo, speaking of Berríos. By which he meant the sturdy starting rotation of Robbie Ray, Steven Matz and Alek Manoah, minus one injury-shelved Hyun-Jin Ryu. “Ray has been awesome, Matz has been awesome, Manoah has been awesome. He’s another guy that, when he pitches, he gives us a chance to win. And you can’t ask for anything better than that.”

Of course you can. But it’ll do, as Toronto ascended to 19 games over .500 by virtue of Berríos’s fifth win flying the Jays colours. He went 6 2/3 innings, giving up three runs, with six strikeouts. It was his fifth quality start in a row. And Minnesota made it 30 major-league clubs faced, rounding out the package.

Almost dreamy in a nostalgic way, it was for Berríos.

“I felt like I was playing back in Puerto Rico, in my backyard, playing with a lot of friends that I’ve known for a long time. I enjoyed a lot this game today.”

It is life-altering, this whole pack-up-your-dolls-and-dishes experience, if exciting to be in the midst of a wild-card pursuit rather than playing out the string, on the outside looking in.

This was not precisely the Berríos the Twins remembered. Since his arrival in Toronto and some early bumps, he has tweaked his delivery; made a mechanical adjustment because he believed he was missing his release point and leaving too many balls over the plate. Instead of bringing his arms all the way over his head while winding up, he now raises them only from belt to chest. And voilà.

Still, he had been a tad leery of taking the mound against a lineup so intimately hip to his pitching ways. “They know me, so I know we have to make more quality pitches. But I don’t feel any pressure to beat them because they’re the team I played for before. No, I don’t have that thing in mind.”

Berríos definitely has his feet under him at the moment, which is exactly what the Jays need from three more of his starts as the regular season gallops towards a conclusion, with the standings day-to-day shape-shifting.

Yet again Toronto did its consequential damage in one stand-alone inning — a five-run bottom of the first against Luke Farrell, a journeyman reliever pressed into starter duty, the son of former Jays manager John Farrell. The offensive outburst was punctuated by Bo Bichette’s 26th home run, a two-run shot, tying a franchise record for shortstops established by Tony Batista in 1999. By game’s end, Bichette was tied for second in the majors in hits (173), second in runs (113), and 11th in RBIs (97).

The 23-year-old all the time insists he’s not a home run hitter, belying the stats. Poo-poo to that, countered Vladimir Guerrero Jr., who tops the majors with 46.

“Since I’ve known Bo, he’s always said the same thing. He doesn’t consider himself a home run hitter. But for me, Bo, the way his swing is, I think he’s going to hit a lot of homers.”

Guerrero didn’t nudge his own swat tally Sunday but on the day singled twice, doubled and scored a run, his 17th three-hit game of the season, while dropping another RBI in that column.

“I’m just trying to use my hands, to be more quick now,” he said. “Instead of trying to hit the ball 500 feet, I’m just trying to put good contact, trying to go the other way. If it’s a hit, it’s a hit. If it goes homer, it goes homer. I’m not trying to do too much.”

Imagine if he was trying. Not that his modest disclaimer is credible.

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Taking the pulse of his team, Guerrero offered this analysis: “I’ll say 100 per cent right now, our confidence. I would say the way we feel right now, we trust in each other very much. We’re sticking together. We know where we are right now in terms of the race for the wild card. So every game, I feel like we’re more together … we’re backing up each other a lot.’’

There was a nice touch, as the teams were filing off the field, with Josh Donaldson exchanging jerseys with Guerrero. Donaldson, one of only two league MVPs in Jays history, has been banging the drum for Guerrero. They had discussed the jersey swap on Saturday, each coveting the other’s, and decided to wait until the end of the series.

“He just told me after, ‘Hey, stay focused, keep working hard to the end.’ ”

As if Junior knows any other way.

Rosie DiManno is a Toronto-based columnist covering sports and current affairs for the Star. Follow her on Twitter: @rdimanno