Happy Birthday Danny Jansen

Danny Jansen turns 27 today.

It is sad that he was having a great start to the season and then, after 3 games, ends up on the IL with an oblique strain. I mean 8 plate appearances mean nothing in the grand scheme of things, but the baseball gods have a sick sense of humour.

Danny is into his fifth season with the Blue Jays (well, parts of five seasons). When he came up, we thought he was going to be a bat-first type catcher, but his glove was surprisingly good. His bat, less so. We had been saying it was the time-consuming job of learning to work with all his pitchers, but his bat didn’t seem to be coming around with time.

Then, last season, after being out with an injury, he had a good last month of the season, hitting .322/.385/.763 in 21 games. That and the nice start to this season had us hopeful.

With any luck, his time on the IL will be short and he’ll continue where he left off.

Happy Birthday, Danny. I hope it is a good one.

Adeiny Hechavarria turns 33 today.

Adeiny was a free agent signing after fleeing Cuba. He got a four-year, worth $10 million back in 2010 from the Jays The team figured he would get to the majors quickly, but he didn’t hit as we hoped. He did get called up on August 12, 2012. He didn’t hit much. His line was .179/.214/.231 when they sent him back down on August 24. But a couple of days later, Jose Bautista hurt his wrist, and Hechavarria was back up for the rest of the season. He would end up hitting .254/.280/.365 with 2 home runs in 41 games.

After the season, he was part of the massive trade with the Marlins, which brought us Jose Reyes, Josh Johnson, Mark Buehrle, Emilio Bonifacio and John Buck.

He played for the Marlins for 4.5 years. Then he was traded to the Rays. From there, he’s gone to the Pirates, Yankees, Mets and Braves.

In 9 seasons, he played 922 games, hitting .253/.291/.351 with 37 home runs. Unfortunately, he never did hit the way we hoped, but he had an excellent glove at short.

He has played in the Japan Pacific League for the last couple of seasons.

Happy birthday, Adeiny.

Aaron Laffey turns 37 today.

He was a Blue Jay in 2012, playing in 22 games, making 16 starts. He had a 4.56 record. He signed with the Mets in the off-season, and then we picked him up again on waivers. He made 1 start for us.

He had an eight-year MLB career. He pitched in 156 games and made 68 starts with a 4.44 ERA.

Happy birthday Aaron.