A couple of basepath blunders ended Javier Baez’s night early.
The Tigers shortstop was pulled in the second inning of Thursday’s 3-1 victory against the Blue Jays for seemingly not hustling out of the batter’s box, then appearing to lose track of outs in an inning-ending play.
Baez, the short-lived Mets infielder, apparently believing his fly ball to left field was a home run, didn’t run hard out of the box.
“If you watch the last couple of series, we’ve made a number of mental mistakes, and the one thing we can control is our preparedness and our readiness,” Detroit manager A.J. Hinch said. “It’s a message to our whole team that we’ve got to clean that up.”
He ended up on second with a double, marking his first extra-base hit of the season.
On Akil Badoo’s liner to center, Baez broke for third and rounded the base, only to be easily doubled up for the Tigers’ third out.
Cameras caught Hinch calling Baez into the tunnel leading to the clubhouse after he returned from the field in the bottom of the second; Baez came back to the dugout to grab his glove, untucked his jersey and left.
“My mind is everywhere right now,” Baez said. “I’m just trying to focus on my hitting and my timing and other stuff.”
“Obviously we’ve got to show respect to the game,” he added. “He took a decision and I respect that. He’s the manager and we’ve got to respect what he does.”
Javier Baez thought their were two outs when he took off from second, but turned into the third one himself. SportsnetBáez said the reason he lost track of the outs was he was hitting sixth, lower in the lineup that usual, and believed he was Detroit’s third batter of the inning.
Jonathon Schoop entered the game batting in Baez’s no. 6 spot and playing third base, with Nick Maton moving from third to short.
It’s the latest gaffe on the base paths for the Tigers, who did not start outfielder Matt Vierling or catcher Eric Haase after they were thrown out running in Wednesday’s 4-3 loss.
Hinch said Baez would return to the lineup for Friday’s home game against San Francisco, adding that the decision to bench him wasn’t easy.
“I don’t want to embarrass anybody,” Hinch said. “I don’t want to lessen our bench. I don’t want to take out one of our starters. He’s a premium player. But I also don’t want to see a team make mental mistakes.”
“Anybody can make mistakes,” Baez said. “At this point, the way we’re playing and the way I’m playing, it’s obviously going to be worse. If I’m hot and I have seven homers and I make that same mistake, I would have stayed in the game. I’ve got no excuses. It’s just part of the game.”
Baez, who signed a six-year, $140 million contract with the Tigers before the 2022 season, is hitting .122 with three walks and eight strikeouts in 12 games this season.
It hasn’t been much better on the other side for the 30-year-old, who already has two fielding errors on season after racking up an MLB-leading 26 in 2022.
He was famously at the center of 2021’s “thumbs down” Mets controversy in which he, along with Francisco Lindor and Kevin Pillar, gestured toward fans during an Aug. 29 game against the Nationals as retribution for their boos.
“[It’s] to let [fans] know when we don’t have success we are going to get booed, so they are going to get booed when we have success,” Baez said.
— with AP
