Cardinals outfielder Jon Jay struggled mightily during the World Series last fall. He floundered at the plate, grounding out weakly again and again and again.
He eventually lost his starting center field job to veteran Skip Schumaker. Jay’s 0-for-14 slump was a constant topic of media discussion. And yet he kept battling.
He came off the bench in Game 6 and was hitless in his first two at bats, leaving him 0 for 16. Cardinal fans savaged him on the Internet, dismissing him as a hapless loser incapable of handling big-game pressure.
But you know what happened next. Jay’s perseverance paid off with a couple of late-game hits. He scored the tying run in the 10th and celebrated with teammates when David Freese won the epic battle in the 11th. The Cards rolled on to win the World Series.
Jay may never be a superstar. He may never be a true everyday player.
But Jay already has proven to be an excellent Cardinal. We mention this because the player he replaced in center field, Colby Rasmus, spoke with the Toronto media today at spring training.
His comments reminded us just how woefully out of place Rasmus was last season on a team full of gritty, resilient and mentally tough players -- including several in his age group.
Playing for the Cardinals is a great opportunity, but it comes with certain expectations. Rasmus failed to measure up. Now he is seeking a fresh start in a less pressurized atmosphere.
Here is some of what he had to say, according to a transcript offered up by The National Post:
On life with the Jays: “Everybody’s been great, all the players, some young guys who have a lot of life to them. It won’t be like St. Louis where I’m just the young little puppy and everybody wants to teach me the tricks and beat me down and tell me that I’m doing things wrong. These guys are cool ..."
On last year’s offensive collapse: “It’s definitely tough to deal with, especially when you feel like you’re working hard. ... The media in St. Louis, they were always on me. I guess I’m an easy target because I’m nice and I try to talk and be nice to the guys, but that’s just not how it works. They’ll take you for everything you can get. So I’m just going to try keep my mouth shut, play the baseball game, relax, and just have fun.”
On last year’s defensive collapse: “I played good in the outfield in the end in Toronto, in the last part of the season my outfield was good I feel like and I was just relaxed. In St. Louis, I got into some trouble where my outfield wasn’t very good but I just wasn’t playing like myself. I wasn’t relaxed, I was worried about messing up and thinking like I had to go over the top to do these things and I just got stressed out, got caught in a place where my confidence wasn’t there.”
On his final days with the Cardinals: “ . . . in St. Louis it just got crazy. The fans were upset with me, the coaches (were) just banging heads a little bit and I just wasn’t comfortable. I couldn’t relax and play. So, I think the coaches over here, like last year when I came in, the outfield coach was cool and just told me to just go out there and play. ‘I know, you know, that you messed up, whenever something happens I don’t have to come at you and breathe down your throat.’ I already knew I messed up and I already knew I was doing things wrong but just that added pressure, I didn’t have no way to filter it out. It just kind of ate me up and it showed in my play.”
On this season: “Once I go out there and just try to play the game without thinking about all that stuff, just go out there and have some swag and smile and have fun and just laugh and play like a kid again, I think I’ll be all right. In St. Louis I just got to where I was so much just business, I was out there with no emotion, every day. I felt like I couldn’t, I just felt like everything I did was the wrong thing. If I showed emotion like I was happy, I wasn’t playing good enough so I could do that.”
On his meddlesome father: “One thing I talked with my dad about is my dad can be a bit negative at times, just because he wants the best for me and he’s scared that I’m not going to do the right thing. He always looks at it from the point of I’m not doing enough, you can always do more. I talked to him about trying to be positive with me, keep me in a positive light and I think that’s something that can help me because he is such a big influence on my game and my overall mentality. Positivity, stay positive, because I think if I stay positive and I’m having fun, like last year at the beginning of the season with St. Louis, I was having fun, just relaxing, playing the game, and I played great. If I can try to do that all year, stay positive, have a lot of positive vibe coming at me, it’ll help my game.”
On becoming a whipping boy in St. Louis: “I guess I just said some things that rubbed people the wrong way. I don’t know really, it’s all about how you play. If I would have played good, it wouldn’t have mattered, but I didn’t play good and like blood in the water, they came after me. But it’s all good, I’m here today ready to play, I’m not worried about it.”
On failing to make it as a Cardinal: “I really never felt good in St. Louis. I always felt like I wasn’t … I don’t know. I was always so much younger than everybody else, and I just felt like I was never really, I guess you could say, a part of the team kind of. I never got comfortable, and Tony wanted it that way. He always said he didn’t want me to get comfortable, he wanted me to always stay working hard and doing this and doing that. So I think that was one thing that might have hurt my game a little bit. I feel like it would be good for me to get comfortable, and know I’m going to be here and know I’m going to be a part of the team, know I’m going to be here ‘til the end instead of worrying about maybe getting sent down and this and that. Just go out there to play the game, have fun, relax. During the offseason I had a lot of time to spend with my family. It’s quiet in Alabama, you know. Spent a lot of time with just my family and some people that I know, not dealing with all the riff-raff, all this stuff. I think right now I’m in good shape and feeling good mentally, so we’ll see what happens down the road.”
Wow. That is one mentally and emotional fragile ballplayer. Could you imagine him fighting his way out of a World Series slump last fall?
With any luck, Rasmus will find happiness in the Great White North. People will leave him alone and allow him to start making the most of considerable talent.
Perhaps he will mature into a true superstar, putting his rare combination of speed and power to work.
That is no matter to Cardinal fans now. Their team won the 2011 World Series championship — and the Rasmus trade was a big key to that triumph. Their team added key pitching help in the swap and unloaded an unhappy player that was sucking life from the group.
