Happy Birthday Steve Pearce

Steve Pearce turns 37 today.

Pearce sent 1 and 2/3s seasons of his 13 year MLB career (presuming he is retired now) with the Blue Jays.

In 2017 he played 92 games with the Jays, hitting .252/.319/.438 with 13 home runs in 348 PA (the second most plate appearances he had in any of his MLB seasons). In 2018 he hit .291/.349/.519 with 4 home runs in 26 games. He went on the DL in early May with an oblique injury and didn’t play again mid-June.

At the end of June, he was traded to the Red Sox for Satiago Espinal. You’ll likely remember he was World Series MVP with the Sox that year.

As a Jay, his most memorable moments were his two walk-off grand slams, four days again. If you want to check on the Game Recaps:

• The first one is here. If you have a very good memory, you’ll remember that Gibby, Marcus Stroman and Russell Martin were all tossed from the game. Will Little was having a rough day.
• The second one is here. Matt started off the recap with the Yogi Berra line “it was déjà vu all over again.”

July 27, 2017:

July 30, 2017:

Career Pearce hit .254/.332/.440 with 91 home runs in 766 games. His career was interrupted by many injuries. And he was the right-handed half of a platoon for most of his career, so his playing time was limited. He played for 7 MLB teams.

He is one of those players I liked, he seemed to enjoy playing and seemed to like his teammates.

Happy Birthday Steve. I hope it is a good one.