You know the term “Keep your friends close and your enemies closer?”
Well, it appears that the Blue Jays will be testing that analogy out as the arch-nemesis of ex-Jays star Jose Bautista will be joining the Blue Jays in the American League East.
On Tuesday, Rougned Odor was traded to the New York Yankees for prospects Josh Stowers and Antonio Cabello after failing to make the Texas Rangers Opening Day roster.
As Odor began with the team back in 2014, he definitely had made a name for himself as one of the team’s stand-out players, but to fans of Canada’s team, he became a villain during the 2016 season.
If you somehow forgot, Odor punched Bautista during a series in 2016 after Joey Bats slid into him at second base.
So when the Texas Rangers Twitter account posted this farewell graphic, it wasn’t hard to spot the nod to the event as they integrated the punch into the photo montage.
Short little summary to refresh your brain: 2015 ALDS the Blue Jays took on the Texas Rangers and won the series 3-2 to move onto the ALCS. Though within the Jays-Rangers series, tensions rose and they were HIGH.
A great deal of that tension arose during Game 5 of the ALDS in Toronto as Bautista took the unwritten rules of baseball and absolutely launched them out of the Rogers Centre and deep into Lake Ontario as he pumped a bat-flip following a go-ahead three-run shot.
Then flash forward to 2016 and there you have the infamous punch!
Of course, Bautista isn’t with the Jays anymore, but there still seems to be a sour taste in the mouth of Jays fans.
Looking at the situation, it seems a little weird to toss that memory into a players farewell tribute considering the Jays ended up winning that series and things didn’t end up too sweet for Odor when he returned to the Rogers Centre to represent Venezuela at the World Baseball Classic and ended up bat-flipping on a single.
Things still didn’t end up being too bright for the 2B as he failed to really contribute to the Rangers cause following a combined stat line of .215/.279/.428 in his final four seasons with the organization.
We’re honestly just excited to see the reactions of Jays fans the next time the Jays and Yankees meet in just over a week. The Blue Jays will have home-field advantage at their Dunedin Spring Training site, but honestly, we feel like the fans will show up and turn the heat up for Odor if he is in the lineup for the Yanks.
In the meantime, the reaction online from Jays' fans pretty much sufficed and gave us all the Odor vs. Bautista drama we’ve missed.
