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Andres Gimenez stays hot as Blue Jays beat Nationals
Former platinum glover Andrés Giménez has been doing it all out of the clean-up spot for the Blue Jays so far this season. His heater continued in Monday’s win over the Nationals.
TORONTO – Bo Bichette’s admiration for Andrés Giménez stretches back to 2018, when the two infielders first played against each other in the double-A Eastern League en route to the majors. The Toronto Blue Jays shortstop noticed his now double-play partner’s defence, for sure, but also really liked what he was doing in the batter’s box, too.
“First off, he’s just a great competitor and just being a good competitor will win you a lot of at-bats,” said Bichette. “But I’ve always thought he was a really good hitter, better than people give him credit for. He can do a lot of different things. He can get a big base hit if you need, he can turn on stuff like he’s done the last few days. He’s been huge for us.”
Those comments came before Giménez once again demonstrated his range in a 5-2 win Monday night over the Washington Nationals. He opened the scoring in the second by ripping a Michael Soroka fastball to right for his third homer of the young season, led off the fourth with a walk and a stolen base before scoring on an Alejandro Kirk double, was hit by a pitch to begin the sixth and then started the eighth with a double cashed in by a George Springer single.
That his early contributions have come out of the cleanup spot – a role for which he’s not exactly the prototype – has been important for a Blue Jays lineup lacking a clear four-hole option with Bichette, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Anthony Santander lined up in the top three to open the year.
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Manager John Schneider has used the top-four alignment in each of the Blue Jays’ five games so far – with Alejandro Kirk batting fifth the four times he’s caught – an indication that he’d like to give this combination some run.
“I know he doesn’t look the part and if you’re drawing up a cleanup hitter, it probably looks like Tony – but this is what he can do,” said Schneider. “The optics may look weird, but he’s a damn good hitter. It’s just a matter of not trying to do anything that he’s not capable of. The quality of the at-bat after the first three guys, was enticing and the baserunning part for the guys that are behind him was real enticing, too. So, credit to him for not really budging and not trying to do anything that he’s not capable of. That’s kind of been the theme.”
That’s fine with Giménez, who started multiple games at all nine spots in the batting order for Cleveland, although he was used most frequently at No. 6 (161 starts) and No. 2 (98 starts).
Wherever he’s at, “I’m trying to be myself, the same hitter,” he said, “it doesn’t matter if I’m leadoff or second or third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh. My last four years in Cleveland I was hitting everywhere, so I know how to how to work with it. The main thing for me is just to try to help the team, wherever he decides to put me in the lineup, I’m going to try to do my best and be myself in the box.”
Giménez is being himself in the field, too, making four plays during the 5.1 no-hit innings Bowden Francis threw at the Nationals. Back-to-back homers by C.J. Abrams and James Wood in the sixth ended that run and made it a 4-2 game, but Francis recovered to get through the frame, while Nick Sandlin, Brendon Little and Yimi García, handling the ninth for his first save, finished off the night before a paid attendance of 20,137.
Their performances helped position the Blue Jays to juggle their rotation with Max Scherzer on the injured list. Barring the unexpected Tuesday, Easton Lucas is slated to start Wednesday’s series finale versus the Nationals, bumping Kevin Gausman to Friday against the New York Mets in their home opener.
Given some of the uncertainty until Scherzer returns, Francis picking up where he left off last year is vital for the Blue Jays.
“I tried to keep trending and kept working on what I was missing and kept trusting that it will come,” Francis said of his spring build-up. “I know that spring is kind of a funny time and it’s hard not to get caught up (in) it, but it’s also one of those things that the games don’t matter. So you’ve really got to save your bullets for these games.”
Part of the Blue Jays’ calculus when they acquired Giménez and Sandlin from the Guardians for Spencer Horwitz and outfield prospect Nick Mitchell is that who Giménez is in the box is closer to the guy who posted an .837 OPS with 17 homers in 2022 than the guy with a .638 OPS and nine homers last year.
Giménez’s good contact skills are central to his varied tool-kit and part of his work with the Blue Jays has been centred around getting back to driving the ball more consistently, ditching the toe-tap he used last season and returning to a leg-kick trigger. He also chased results a year ago, which took him away from the consistent movements and approach central to his past success.
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To that end, he’s making a point of not letting the four-hole dictate what he’s trying to do, instead, “the score, the situation, if you pay attention to the game, the game is going to tell you what to do at that moment,” said Giménez. “That’s how I build my plan.
Obviously you have an approach before the game, study the pitcher, what he likes to do, what he’s good at, what his weaknesses are, his strengths. That’s how you build everything, it’s a constant mental effort. And I’m getting a lot of information, tips, advice from Vladdy, Anthony, Bo. They are excellent at that. I’ve been taking some of those, for sure.”
Given that, consistency in the batting order matters in ways that aren’t always obvious.
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As Bichette points out, as much as hitters may intend to carry the same approach and same mentality into an at-bat regardless of place in the lineup, that’s “easier said than done.”
“Hitting one or two, you’re more likely to see fastballs early in the count,” Bichette continued. “If you’re a four-hole hitter, you get up in the first inning, it’s probably a big at-bat, someone’s on base with a chance to get a run in, so you have to be ready for the guy’s best pitch at all times from the first inning on. So it’s definitely different. If you have an opportunity to get comfortable in a role, it’s easier for a long period of time; bouncing back and forth is a little bit more difficult.”
At some point, the Blue Jays will surely juggle parts of their batting order, although Schneider has sounded pretty determined to keep his top three together, ensuring each hits in the first inning, and that Santander follows Guerrero.
The season, of course, is young and the sample’s small, but for now, Giménez looks like the offensive player the Blue Jays believed they were getting when they acquired him, and the four-hole is as good a fit as anywhere else in the order.
