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DUNEDIN — First things first: For his inaugural in-game assignment in the role of Blue Jays offensive coordinator, Don Mattingly was not in the TD Ballpark press box on Saturday afternoon, but in the home dugout for his team’s Grapefruit League opener.
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Donnie Baseball is not punchline, after all, and as the man charged with overseeing the resuscitation of the Jays attack, he’s ready for action.
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For a team that laboured so much offensively last season, perhaps the football title bestowed on one of the best to hit a baseball is a perfect fit.
“You have to have a passion for hitting and for wanting guys to be the best they can possibly be,” Mattingly said of how he’s embracing his new role. “Just having the energy for that and that way of thinking (is a big part of it) and I feel like I have a pretty good feel for the length of the season.
“I’ve always loved hitting and understanding it and reasons why this works and this doesn’t work and what causes what in your swing. All those things are very interesting to me. So it’s easy to be fired up about it.”
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A dose of that fiery Mattingly, a Yankee great as a hitter and first basemen, can’t be a bad thing for a team ready to add some edge to its attack.
In fact, that old Donnie Baseball emerged and turned some heads when he met with his group of hitters for the first time earlier in the week.
“He had a little fire when he addressed us, which I thought was nice,” was the quick take of the team’s best hitter, Bo Bichette. “Overall, he just wants us to compete better. He’s setting the expectation for us as a team to just be tough guys to pitch against.”
Selling that message is easier to a group of elite athletes when the voice is a career .307 hitter. Entering his second season on the Jays staff, Mattingly will retain his bench coach duties but with the critical OC portfolio attached.
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Fundamentals will be a key component of the new assignment in action, but central will be communication.
While much of Mattingly’s work will be done behind the scenes, during games he’ll be at Schneider’s flank — as he was on a brilliant sunny Saturday in a 14-13 loss to the Phillies to launch the 32-game pre-season — with pitching coach Pete Walker and fellow bench coach DeMarlo Hale not far away.
Schneider said that once Mattingly was approached with an enhanced portfolio, he was a quick and enthusiastic sell. Though he has had some success as a manager, Mattingly told me last season that he loves “getting my hands dirty” working with the players.
Already, it seems, that passion and voice is resonating.
“He’s been really fiery with what he’s trying to do so far,” Schneider told us on Saturday. “He’s a coach at heart. He loves getting out here. He’s in the cage early every morning.
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“When we started talking about (the new role) in the off-season, it’s something we knew he was really good at. He has a real passion about hitting and was excited when we brought it up to him. He was all about it. There is not a better guy to be hammering home the messaging every single night.”
At the root of Mattingly’s methods will be to simplify both the approach and the way in which information is disseminated and distributed. At the risk of being facetious, there were times last season when it might have felt as though there were more people talking hitting than swinging a bat.
“Hitting is tough, man,” Mattingly said. “You get a lot of different voices during the course of a season. Your high school coach, somebody else being something on the internet … guys are trying so many different things.
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“We just want to keep a more simplistic view of how we’re going about our business. We want to make sure we’re talking to players, that our message is consistent with that they need individually but also our group, how we look at ourselves as an offence.”
That competitive streak that defined Mattingly’s playing career appears to be re-igniting.
“It doesn’t matter what happened last year, honestly,” Mattingly said when asked if communication was an issue at times last season. “Obviously we didn’t do what we were capable of last year, but that’s (in the past.)
“When I (moved) to this role, it’s about uniting and making sure everything is consistent.
“I love hitting. I’ve always had a passion for it.”
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