Blue Jays takeaways: George Springer makes the trip around the bases easy for Kirk

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This article was published 01/05/2021 (1656 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The view from Deep Left Field on Saturday’s Blue Jays-Braves game:

George Springer appeared to have aggravated the quadriceps muscle injury that cost him the first 22 games of the season in his first at-bat Saturday night, when he grabbed at the top of his leg as he neared first base while trying to beat out a slow roller to shortstop.

Springer stayed in the game, though, and when he came out to hit in the third inning with the Jays down 4-0, Alejandro Kirk was on first base, having walked.

First base coach Mark Budzinski called out trainer Jose Ministral to have a look at Kirk, who pointed to the top of his leg. Kirk had aggravated his left hip flexor while running out a foul ball a couple of pitches earlier, but he did a couple of light sprints and convinced his manager to let him stay in the game.

Springer wanted to take it easy on his young teammate, so he took a 3-0 fastball over the outside corner and smacked it over the right-field wall for his first home run as a Jay. No need to worry about an injured leg when you’re just trotting around the bases, after all.

Kirk would leave the game after the top of the sixth inning, having appeared to aggravate whatever had been bothering him earlier when he tried to beat out a slow roller to third in the fifth. And Springer would homer again, tying the game 5-5 with a 470-foot solo shot to left in the seventh.

Randall Grichuk’s bases-loaded single in the 10th gave the Jays a 6-5 win.

• Milone meltdown: Tommy Milone was supposed to provide the bulk innings on Saturday’s bullpen day and he got off to a terrific start. The left-hander came out for the second inning and retired the first two batters he faced on only three pitches.

He needed 22 pitches to get that third out, though, and before he did Atlanta got to Milone for five consecutive hits.

Dansby Swanson and Pablo Sandoval hit line-drive singles before Austin Riley’s little nubber up the third-base line couldn’t be handled cleanly by Milone. The infield hit loaded the bases, and Cristian Pache unloaded them. The rookie, just called up for this series, belted a 2-2 changeup 411 feet to left for a grand slam.

It was the first career regular-season home run for the 22-year-old, who also hit one against the Dodgers in last year’s National League Championship Series.

Ronald Acuna, Jr. followed Pache’s slam with a double to left-centre before Milone finally got that elusive third out — a 100-m.p.h. Freddie Freeman line drive into the glove of Vladimir Guerrero, Jr.

• Nothing but No. 1: Travis Bergen was the opener for the Jays and he seemed to have been given very clear instructions to work his one inning and leave absolutely nothing in the tank.

The southpaw, traded to Arizona at the deadline last season for Robbie Ray, then reacquired this winter for cash, threw 16 pitches in the first inning. Every one of them was a four-seam fastball.

Bergen was called up before Wednesday’s loss to Washington, when Hyun-Jin Ryu was placed on the injured list. He got into the game that night, throwing a shutout inning — 13 pitches, all four-seam fastballs.

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So that’s two outings for Bergen this season, two innings pitched without allowing a hit or a walk, and 29 fastballs.

Bergen only threw the heater about two-thirds of the time last season, mixing in his curveball for the rest, with the exception of one changeup. Opposing batters hit .273 against the curveball and only .125 against the fastball.

This season, they’re hitting .000.

Obviously, Bergen’s not going to be able to survive very long in the big leagues as a one-pitch pitcher. You’ve got to get something other than the four-seamer in a hitter’s mind. But it does seem to be working nicely so far.

Mike Wilner is a Toronto-based baseball columnist for the Star. Follow him on Twitter: @wilnerness