Sometimes, one key at-bat in the most critical situation could mean the difference between winning and losing. Toronto Blue Jays catcher Tyler Heineman certainly learned about it in the hardest way possible this past Sunday (May 3) during a close game against the Minnesota Twins.
With the Twins up 4-1 on the Blue Jays, Toronto was threatening after scoring their first run of the game on a Daulton Varsho RBI single. The Blue Jays would load the bases and bring the potential go-ahead run to the plate in Heineman. Unfortunately, in an uninspiring at-bat, the veteran catcher would promptly fly out to left field on the very first pitch, which happened to be way high and in on his hands as well.
With that, Blue Jays manager John Schneider had no choice but to hold Heineman accountable for the lack of effort. Schneider would remove him from the game and replaced him with rookie Brandon Valenzuela for the bottom of the inning.
Normally, a manager would ultimately sub in their backup for the starting catcher as a result of a pinch hitting or pinch running assignment, or when the starter had suffered an injury. But to be pulled without any of those scenarios occurring meant Schneider wasn’t too overjoyed at what had transpired after the sixth inning at-bat by Heineman.
Tyler Heineman and his recent struggles led to a tough, but much-needed game decision by Blue Jays manager John Schneider
The 34-year-old catcher had already been struggling of late, registering only two hits in his last 31 plate appearances for an .071 average, .175 OPS, zero runs scored, zero home runs, one RBI and nine strikeouts. As a result, with a cold bat in the potential game-changing situation that was presented to Heineman in the sixth inning, it would make sense if he stayed patient, saw a couple of pitches first, before attempting to pull the trigger on a good pitch to hit. However, perhaps his struggles got too much into his head as he would quickly swing at a bad pitch and ended the inning in an instant.
After the game, Schneider indicated that Heineman’s removal from the game was a “manager’s decision” and didn’t further elaborate from it, as per Shi Davidi of Sportsnet. As for Heineman, he fully supported his manager and had only good words to say for the decision when all was said and done.
“Just situation, everything that’s been going on, and I just didn’t get it done. Manager’s decision, I stick by it. One of the best managers in the game, the best manager I have played for. He has a reason for everything he does, and I fully support him,” explained Heineman.
The Blue Jays veteran catcher would also go on to admit that he had an unproductive at-bat with the bases loaded amidst his recent struggles and owned up to his mistake in that he should be better than that, as per Arden Zwelling of Sportsnet.
“That at-bat was pretty trash. I popped up on a pitch I should’ve drove … I’ve been pretty crappy the last 10 games or so. So, he (Schneider) probably saw something that he shouldn’t have saw or that I did wrong,” Heineman said.
It’s one thing to challenge the manager with a particular move during the game. But it totally means a lot more when the player genuinely supports their leader no matter what the circumstances are. In this case, not only has Heineman given the vote of confidence in Schneider to allow him to make potentially difficult decisions for the team when needed going forward, it also showed how much the players also respect and believe in their manager in getting the job done by accepting any of their faults that they might have created.