Daulton Varsho couldn’t help but smile.
In his first game back with the Toronto Blue Jays, the centre-fielder embarrassed himself yet also made arguably the catch of the year, all on the same play.
During Tuesday’s fourth inning, Jarren Duran sent a 105.4-m.p.h. missile to centre and Varsho gave chase. He covered 72 feet then tripped at the warning track, tumbling forward. That’s where the embarrassment came in, but it only lasted a split second.
Varsho recovered to an upright position, with one knee on the ground and his back facing home plate, and stuck out his glove to complete a miraculous catch. It was a play you’ll probably never see again and the 25,045 at Rogers Centre acknowledged that with a rousing applause.
“You kind of just shake your head,” said Blue Jays manager John Schneider. “He’s the best out there.”
The ball had a 95-per-cent catch probability and Varsho alluded to that after the game, joking that he made it look hard.
“Tripped myself up on turf and saw the ball closely at the end and just kind of stuck my glove out and somehow it went in,” Varsho said. “I said a profanity word, but then I was like, ‘All right, where’s the ball?’ And just trying to do everything I can to try to catch it.”
The play symbolized the type of injection the Blue Jays hoped Varsho, who’d been sidelined since undergoing surgery on his right rotator cuff last September, would provide to the struggling club. Unfortunately, though, it didn’t impact the result as the Blue Jays fell, 10-2, to the Red Sox in the opener of a three-game set.
“It’s April,” said Varsho. “Knowing that, it’s a long season and you can’t get too hard on yourself. I feel like a lot of guys are trying to do too much, me included tonight. But it’s just one of those things where you got to grind through it, get through it, because you’re going to have stretches through the season, and it’s just like how are you able to respond and get through it? You get punched in the mouth. It’s how do you get back up?
“And so, it’s just one of these stretches for us. I think we’re going to get through it, we’re going to be better because of it.”
The conversation around the club prior to the game centred around Varsho, with Schneider talking about how having his starting centre-fielder back would make the lineup and defence better. He also reflected on Varsho’s growth with the club.
“He’s a different dude than he was a couple of years ago,” Schneider said. “I think everyone really just appreciates him as a teammate. And he’s a lot more vocal now. Kind of just puts everyone in a good mood.”
The manager cautioned that nobody is expecting Varsho to save the struggling offence. Instead, “we want him to fit in. When you look up and down, we need the top of our order to get going a little bit and we just need people to do their part. I think Varsh is really good at that. He understands what kind of player he is, what kind of hitter he is.”
Varsho, who drew a walk and went hitless in three at-bats on Tuesday, echoed that sentiment.
“Just be myself,” Varsho responded when asked what he’s hoping to bring to the lineup. “Don’t try to be too much and just be yourself and go out there and play.”
Varsho added that he’s learned to understand that there will be good and bad days as he continues to acclimate physically and noted that he checked an important box by diving on a play in centre during his recent stint with the Buffalo Bisons in triple-A. He’d practised diving and running into walls, but nothing really compares to doing it at game-speed. When he finally did, it cemented Varsho’s trust in the strength of his shoulder.
And on Tuesday, it didn’t take long for that to show.
Schneider remarked that as he watched Varsho’s highlight-reel catch unfold, he said to himself, “Don’t fall on your shoulder.”
However, that thought didn’t even cross Varsho’s mind.
“Not in my head at all,” he said.
