Wednesday Bantering: Jays Sign Derek Holland

Happy May fourth.

There is a big of Jays news:

Derek Holland signed a minor league deal with the Jays. Holland is a 35-year-old lefty pitcher. Over the last few seasons, he’s worked mostly as a reliever. He hasn’t had an ERA under 5 since 2016.

Career he has a 4.62 ERA in 346 games, 228 starts.

He was pitching for the Red Sox Triple-A team until they let him go a couple of days ago. He had a 6.35 ERA in 11.1 innings for Worcester.

Some old lefties can pitch into their 40s. I’m not sure Holland will be one of those.

Our pitchers for the rest of the week.

This moment is getting a lot of attention. I wonder if it is a statement of the world we live in that a small act of kindness gets so much attention.

Kaitlyn McGrath in the Athletic, talked to the boy, Derek Rodriguez (a 9-year-old Yankees fan name Derek, what are the odds? 1 in 2?), the Jays fan that gave him the ball and got the hug, Mike Lanzillotta and the boy’s father.

Even an inning later, Derek, clutching the ball with both hands, was a little bit emotional while talking about the special souvenir he said he’ll keep in his bedroom and surely treasure for the rest of his life.

“I’m really excited,” said Derek, a grade-four student. “My dream is to meet Aaron Judge, and well, I’m really happy that I got the ball from his home run.”

Derek had been wishing Judge would hit a home run his way during the game. “That’s what I literally said.”

How did he feel when it actually happened and Lanzillotta handed him the baseball?

“I said ‘thank you’ and hugged him a lot,” he said. “And I said ‘thank you’ a lot.”

Madison Bumgarner got thrown out of the Diamondbacks game today. He was unhappy with a couple of the plate umpire’s calls, and when the umpire checked his hands for sticky stuff, he seemed to be daring Madison to say something:

According to the TV people, that was the first base umpire who threw him out of the game. umpires, to me, should be a little thicker skinned. But I don’t know what was said.

This doesn’t look like a ‘regular’ check of the pitcher. The umpire is just staring at him.