Alex Cora’s job is to win games, not necessarily to facilitate rare or unique baseball oddities. So when it came to the possibility that Danny Jansen could become the first player in MLB history to appear in the same game for both teams, the Red Sox manager hadn’t given it much thought before media members began asking if it was going to happen.
Cora announced this past Friday that it would and that Jansen would play when the Red Sox and Blue Jays continue their suspended game from June 26. But Sunday he acknowledged that wasn’t a sure thing, and even that he may have gotten a bit ahead of himself when he made the announcement.
“Actually I told you guys he was playing without remembering Reese was catching that day, because then I looked and it was like ‘well if Wong is catching then I don’t know how we’re going to pull this off, right?'” Cora said. “It’s something cool, but it’s not that we’re trying to make history, it’s just like he needs to play tomorrow.”
Fortunately circumstances aligned where playing Jansen was the obvious choice whether history was on the line or not. When the June 26 game was halted by heavy rain Reese McGuire was behind the plate for the Red Sox, so with McGuire now playing in Triple-A it made logical sense to sub Jansen in and have fellow catcher Connor Wong play the second game of the doubleheader later Monday night.
When Jansen takes the field, he’ll become the answer to a unique piece of baseball trivia and the first to accomplish the unusual feat in the century-plus history of MLB. Even if it’s not something he plans to focus on going in, Jansen acknowledged that’s pretty cool.
“Yeah, of course. I think if you make your stamp on the game in any way and it happens to be mine like that, that’s going to be cool,” Jansen said Sunday.
How is any of this possible? When the June 26 game began Jansen was still playing for the Blue Jays, but a month after the game was suspended due to heavy rain he was traded to the Red Sox. Ironically, Jansen was actually up to bat and down in the count 0-1 when the game was stopped, so when he steps behind the plate when the game resumes at 2:05 p.m. on Monday, he’ll be catching an at bat he himself started two months earlier.
As soon as the trade went through on July 27 numerous observers began putting together the dots, but while the possibility was brought to Jansen’s attention soon after his arrival in Boston, it wasn’t until Cora’s announcement on Friday that the situation became real.
“I’ve received some texts through friends and family and some teammates, but for me it hasn’t hit me yet,” Jansen said. “It’s just going to be probably after the game tomorrow when the doubleheader is done and all that, but yeah, it’s going to be cool.”