Tuesday 29 September 2015

Know your Jays: Edwin Encarnacion

Also known as Eddie, Big E, or Double-E, he's the always-reliable 4th batter in the lineup, following friend (and fellow Dominican) Jose Bautista. When there are days he isn't playing first base, he's probably the designated hitter because he's such an important part of the batting order!

Does he have Twitter - Yes, under the clever first-last blending name @Encadwin but he doesn't use it very often. He has an Instagram under the same name as well, those posts are few and far between. But if you can read Spanish, go ahead and take a look!

Irrelvant Facts - When Toronto acquired him in 2009 from the Reds, the Jays GM had been trying to get pitching. Reds management wouldn't accept the trade unless the Jays also took Edwin alongside the two intended pitchers. Your loss is our gain, Cincinnati!

Things He's Good at - He hits a lot of home runs. And I mean a lot. He holds the Blue Jays team record for the most home runs hit in a single month - 16 in August of this year - and is also one of only 3 Jays players to homer three times in one game, and he's done it twice.

He also hits them far, including to the 500 level of the SkyDome - making him one of only a handful of Jays players to ever do this.

 

Things He's Not So Good At - He doesn't run terribly fast, but when you're hitting no-doubt homers all the time, who needs running? That's actually a theory of mine - he hits so many homers so he can take his time going around the bases. It's more fun that way.

He also has various injuries that tend to pop up at random throughout the season and make him unavailable for days or even weeks at a time. But he always makes the most of his time at the plate! 


2015 season highlights - On June 9th the Blue Jays were trailing 3-2 in the 9th inning against the Miami Marlins when Edwin, returning from a shoulder injury, hit a home run that drove in Josh Donaldson and walked off the game. In the video he can clearly be seen pointing to his shoulder as he reaches home plate, reminding his teammates to be careful!


On August 29th, EE hit 3 homers in the same game, including a grand slam (his third of the season) and 9 RBI. His previous personal record for RBIs in one game was 6 - he also tied the team record with 9 in a single game, a record that has stood since their inaugural 1976 season and hadn't even been tied since. The third grand slam in one season also meant he tied a team record.

This was only the second time in Edwin's career he'd accomplished the 'hat trick' - a fact Canadian fans acknowledged by throwing their caps on the field and giving him a 5-minute standing ovation while the grounds crew ran around cleaning them up. He became the first ever Blue Jay to hit a grand slam and a 3-run homer in the same game, and was just a solo homer short of hitting for the 'home run cycle'. Interestingly enough, in the first inning of the game the following day, he hit a solo home run. Since there had been no bottom ninth the day before, as the Blue Jays were winning, he technically hit a 'home run cycle' within nine consecutive innings.

His home runs that day also extended his personal-best hit streak to 24 games. It was the longest streak this season in MLB at that point. He eventually reached 26 games in the streak, the longest ever for a Blue Jay player, but his on-base streak continued well into September (as he had walked in the first game when he didn't record a hit).

He received the AL Player of the Month award for all his hitting in August. This is even more impressive when you take into consideration the fact that he was out injured for several games at the beginning of the month.

Off-field antics: He always seems to be enjoying himself in the dugout with his teammates, and his reactions are sometimes the most dramatic of anyone.

One of my personal favourite Edwin stories is this, when he met a young boy at a game who had a prosthetic leg with a Blue Jays design on it. He took the leg and got the other members of the team to sign it (with the family's permission, of course!)
When he had his 'hat trick' game, he promised that he would sign each of the hats thrown on the field by fans, and sign them, and try to return them to their rightful owners. Which would be a heck of a task to undertake, but such a sweet gesture!

Fictional/Cartoon Character He Resembles: I was actually kind of stumped for this one, until one day my sister was watching The Lion King and it hit me - he's Pumbaa! Now this is in no way an insinuation that he smells bad (how would I know, I've never met the guy) but think about it - he's a big strong dude, which could be physically intimidating at first, but he's got a heart of gold. He's also part of an inseparable duo - which by extension I guess would mean Jose Bautista is Timon.
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