June 26, 2024: Catcher Danny Jansen starts as a Blue Jay, ends same game with Red Sox two months later

Baseball’s distinctive aspects – the most scheduled games of all team sports, greatest amenability to playing two games in one day, and highest likelihood of suspended games getting completed at a later date – have produced more than a few chronological oddities.

On May 30, 1922, Max Flack and Cliff Heathcote swapped teams between games of a St. Louis Cardinals-Chicago Cubs doubleheader. Joel Youngblood notched a two-run single for the New York Mets in an afternoon game in Chicago in 1982 before being traded, flying to Philadelphia, and hitting another single that night for the Montréal Expos. After rain caused a June 1986 minor-league game to be paused for two months, Syracuse Chiefs outfielder Dale Holman was released – and continued the game that August as a member of the opposing Richmond Braves. Suspended games have led players such as Oscar Gamble, Dave Parker, Barry Bonds, Jeff Reardon, and Juan Soto to appear in box scores for contests that predated their major-league debuts.1

But entering the series finale between the Toronto Blue Jays and Boston Red Sox on June 26, 2024, no major leaguer had appeared on both sides of the same box score. At least not yet.

Danny Jansen started the game as a Blue Jay. The 29-year-old backup catcher had been in the Toronto organization since 2013, longer than any teammate. He had gotten married and fathered two kids as a Blue Jay. In the bottom of the first inning, as he had done in 422 previous major-league regular-season performances, he tightened his Blue Jays mask and crouched behind home plate.2 And with no score in the top of the second, he came to bat against Boston starter Kutter Crawford.

Rain, however, also appeared. Drizzle escalated to downpour. Fenway Park’s Kentucky bluegrass and dirt became wet and slippery. One strike into Jansen’s at-bat, the umpires summoned the tarps. The rest of the game had to wait.

Hopes of playing again later that night became increasingly unrealistic. “The warning track was beginning to flood,” Boston Herald reporter Mac Cerullo wrote. “Water was pooling in the outfield.” Almost two hours into the rain delay, the storm showed no sign of calming. Many of the 34,756 spectators gave up and went home. Finally, just before 9:30 P.M., the umpires and teams agreed to call it a night. “It’s unlikely either pitcher would have been able to return after the lengthy delay,” Cerullo added, “so the decision to postpone the game saved both sides from having to tax their respective bullpens.”3

The Blue Jays and Red Sox were to resume as part of a doubleheader on August 26, the next time Toronto was scheduled to play in Boston.4

As it turned out, Jansen didn’t have to wait that long to return to Fenway Park. The last-place Blue Jays, looking to rebuild and maximize value before the July 30 trade deadline, dealt him to the Red Sox on July 27 in exchange for three prospects.5 Before surrendering his number-9 jersey, Jansen walked onto the Rogers Centre turf and snapped some keepsake photos.6

Further actions distanced the Blue Jays even more from their June 26 starting lineup. Isiah Kiner-Falefa, who had started the game at third base, was traded to the Pittsburgh Pirates. Designated hitter Justin Turner went to the Seattle Mariners. Center fielder Kevin Kiermaier became a Los Angeles Dodger.7 A mid-July calf injury sidelined shortstop Bo Bichette.

In the leadup to the doubleheader, the Red Sox lineup also looked different. First baseman Triston Casas replaced Dominic Smith, who had been released on August 20. Starting catcher Reese McGuire had gone back to the minors in late July. And because no rules prevented manager Alex Cora from replacing McGuire with someone who hadn’t been on the roster on June 26, he penciled Jansen in; “Yeah, he’s catching,” Cora said on August 23. “Let’s make history.”8

Jansen, sporting number 28 for Boston, was to become the first major leaguer to play on opposing teams not just in the same game, not just in the same inning, but in the same at-bat.9 “It’s such a strange thing that’s happening,” he said shortly before the game resumed. “But I’m grateful to have the opportunity to do it.”10

Like most continuations of paused games, the August 26 event had fewer spectators, but many of those who were there embraced the strangeness. Jansen’s wife and two kids cheered him on. Fenway Park organist Josh Kantor played “Right Back Where We Started From” and “Both Sides Now.”11 As the players resumed work at 2:05 P.M. – with one on, one out, a 0-and-1 count, and Jansen now behind home plate instead of in the batter’s box – public-address announcer Henry Mahegan reminded the crowd: “The Jays will send a pinch-hitter to the plate because the player batting when the game was suspended, Danny Jansen, is now a member of the Red Sox.”12

The Toronto pinch-hitter was lefty Daulton Varsho. He stepped in to face Boston right-hander Nick Pivetta, who was pitching in Crawford’s place. Before getting into his stance, a smiling Varsho patted his former teammate Jansen on the back. To quote Red Sox announcer Dave O’Brien’s play-by-play: “Playfully, Daulton is like, ‘What did I do wrong? I’ve got to start with a strike?’”13

Varsho fouled off the first pitch of the day, to make the count 0-and-2. One swing-and-miss on a breaking ball later, the at-bat Jansen had started 61 days earlier was over. Varsho – not Jansen – was charged with the strikeout, the first of 10 for Pivetta.14

Jansen’s first full at-bat of the game came in the bottom of the second. He enjoyed claps from the intimate crowd before facing Toronto starter Yariel Rodríguez’s substitute, right-hander Ryan Burr. After working the count to 2-and-1, Jansen knocked a soft liner into Blue Jays first baseman Spencer Horwitz’s glove. The inning was over.

Neither team got a hit until the fifth. Varsho ended the lull with an opposite-field line drive that ricocheted off the left-field wall, the ballpark’s famous Green Monster. He reached first base for a single, but because league officials still considered this a June contest, the hit did not extend the 22-game on-base streak he had started on July 30.15 On top of that statistical wrinkle, back-to-back lineouts stranded him at first.

Jansen delivered the Red Sox’ first hit moments later. It was a single to shallow center off Ryan Yarbrough, a bulk reliever who hadn’t even been a Blue Jay when the game started two months earlier. Traded by the Dodgers in late July for Kiermaier, Yarbrough fanned the next two batters – Casas and Ceddanne Rafaela – to end the frame. Jansen returned to the dugout as Boston’s first stranded baserunner of the afternoon.

Two Red Sox got on base in the sixth. With Tyler O’Neill on first and Romy Gonzalez on second, Rafael Devers dribbled a grounder down the first-base line. Toronto catcher Brian Serven barehanded a toss to first that hit Devers in the back and rolled away. Gonzalez kept running and crossed home plate, but because umpire Shane Livensparger called Devers out on runner’s interference, O’Neill and Gonzalez had to return to first and second. The next batter, Rob Refsnyder, grounded to shortstop Leo Jiménez, who got an inning-ending force out at second. Boston had squandered another chance to score first.

Toronto soon took advantage. On a 1-and-0 fastball by Pivetta in the seventh, George Springer sent a 416-foot solo home run past the left-field seats.16 After Toronto catcher Serven lined a single in the eighth, a grounder by Spencer Horwitz – which could have led to an inning-ending double play – slipped under Boston first baseman Casas’s glove; second baseman Gonzalez recovered the ball and ran to first, but Horwitz beat it out. One pitching change later, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. lined a two-run double off reliever Luis García. Addison Barger answered the next pitch with a ground-rule double, scoring Guerrero to give the Jays a 4-0 lead.

Though an eighth-inning homer by Jarren Duran gave the Red Sox their first run, their deficit proved too big. With Masataka Yoshida on second base after a two-out double in the ninth, Jansen struck out swinging to end the game. This marked Boston’s fourth loss in as many days.

The victorious Blue Jays, though still last in the American League East, earned a few distinctions. They had their fifth straight win – and first of two against the Red Sox that day.17 Seven of their pitchers had combined on a four-hitter. The fact that the game had started two months earlier meant that outfielder Joey Loperfido, acquired in a July trade, was on record as having played in two June 26 games: one as a Jay in Boston, the other as a Houston Astro against the Colorado Rockies.18 And despite shortstop Jiménez’s July 4 major-league debut and second baseman Will Wagner’s August 12 debut, both rookies received credit for playing on June 26.

But it was Jansen, a career .223 hitter at that point, whose two-teams-in-one-game feat intrigued Cooperstown. The National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum voiced interest in displaying items from the occasion. Official scorer Bob Ellis obliged by sending his scorecard, which showed Jansen as a member of both the winning and losing teams.19

Jansen had worn two Red Sox jerseys that afternoon. He planned to give one to the museum and keep the other as a memento. “It’s cool, leaving a stamp like that on the game,” he said. “It’s interesting, and it’s strange.”20

Jansen soon got another jersey for his collection. He declared free agency after the season and signed a one-year, $8.5 million contract with the Tampa Bay Rays, his third AL East team.

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Bruce Slutsky and copy-edited by Len Levin. Additional thanks to Bill Nowlin and John Fredland for their input.

Photo credit: Danny Jansen, Trading Card Database.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org for box scores and other material.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/BOS/BOS202406260.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/2024/B06260BOS2024.htm

Notes

1 Gamble made his major-league debut with the Chicago Cubs on August 27, 1969. On September 2, in the eighth inning of a suspended game that had begun on June 15, he pinch-hit for Ken Rudolph and walked. The visiting Cubs beat the Cincinnati Reds, 5-4.

Parker debuted with the Pittsburgh Pirates on July 12, 1973. On July 26, in a game that had started on April 21, he hit a seventh-inning single. Pittsburgh lost to the Cubs in Chicago, 10-9.

Bonds played his first game with the Pirates on May 30, 1986. On August 11 he entered an extra-inning game that had been suspended on April 21. His 17th-inning single scored the go-ahead run. The Pirates beat the Cubs, 10-8.

Reardon – a New York Met who had been called up on August 25, 1979 – pitched a scoreless ninth inning of a 1-1 game that had begun on June 17. The Mets beat the Atlanta Braves, 2-1, with Reardon earning the win.

Soto debuted with the Washington Nationals on May 20, 2018. On June 18, in the sixth inning of a home game that had begun on May 15, he hit a go-ahead two-run home run. Washington beat the New York Yankees – Soto’s future team – 5-3.

2 Jansen made his major-league debut with the Blue Jays on August 13, 2018. He played catcher in 29 regular-season games in 2018, 103 in 2019, 43 in 2020, 69 in 2021, 63 in 2022, 73 in 2023, and another 42 heading into June 26, 2024.

3 Mac Cerullo, “Red Sox-Blue Jays Suspended Due to Weather, Will Resume Aug. 26,” Boston Herald online, June 26, 2024, https://www.bostonherald.com/2024/06/26/red-sox-enter-rain-delay-in-top-of-the-second-inning/.

4 Neither team had made 15 outs yet. As such, had the game been suspended before 2020, it would have started over later in the season with all previous records scrapped. But a rule part of the major leagues’ COVID-19 safety protocols – made permanent under a 2022 collective-bargaining deal – placed regular-season games under the same umbrella as postseason games and division tiebreakers: “Such games shall be treated as suspended games that will be continued at a later date and resumed at the exact point of suspension of the original game.” Major League Baseball’s 2020 Operations Manual, 5-3, available at https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/20066940/2020-MLB-Operations-Manual.0.pdf. Accessed February 15, 2025.

5 In the deal for Jansen, Boston sent minor-league pitcher Gilberto Batista and infielders Cutter Coffey and Eddinson Paulino to the Toronto organization.

6 Keegan Matheson, “’Hard to See Him Leave’: Jansen Traded to Boston in Emotional Deadline Deal,” MLB.com, July 27, 2024, https://www.mlb.com/news/blue-jays-trade-danny-jansen-for-three-prospects.

7 In exchange for Kiner-Falefa, Toronto received utility player Charles McAdoo on July 30, 2024. For Turner, Toronto received outfielder RJ Schreck on July 29. For Kiermaier, Toronto received pitcher Ryan Yarbrough on July 30.

8 Frank Zicarelli, “History Awaits; Danny Jansen Finds It ‘Cool’ to Be Part of Baseball Lore Today,” Toronto Sun, August 26, 2024: S3.

9 Jansen was unable to wear number 9 with the Red Sox; the team had retired the number to honor Ted Williams.

10 Peter Abraham, “Two Teams, One Game: Jansen’s Day One for the Major-League Record Books,” Boston Globe, August 27, 2024: C1.

11 Abraham.

12 Abraham.

13 “Blue Jays vs. Red Sox Game Highlights Game Susp. from 6/26/24,” (YouTube video), 9:33, https://youtu.be/JnASsIWUJnw?si=MPtng7pwraWDF9LD. Accessed February 2025.

14 Had the game been suspended with two strikes against him, Jansen would have been charged with the strikeout. But because Varsho had begun pinch-hitting with only a one-strike count, the strikeout was in his name.

15 Rule 9.23 from the 2024 major-league rulebook states: “[A]ll performances in the completion of a suspended game shall be considered as occurring on the original date of the game” – which in this case was June 26. Because Varsho made no plate appearances in the August 26 night game, his on-base streak remained intact. He extended the streak to 23 games the following night with a home run, though it ended on August 28 with a 0-for-4 outing against Boston. See Vanish Grover and Raquel Wagner, eds., Official Baseball Rules (New York: Office of the Commissioner of Baseball, 2024), 144.

16 Associated Press reporter Ken Powtak noted the home run’s length in “Blue Jays Beat Red Sox Twice, and Danny Jansen Shows Up on Both Sides of Box Score – an MLB First,” Associated Press online, August 26, 2024, https://apnews.com/article/blue-jays-red-sox-score-49dd0e2445778d817353c5657358f1c5#.

17 Toronto won the nightcap against Boston, 7-3.

18 Loperfido, infielder Will Wagner, and pitcher Jake Bloss joined the Toronto organization as part of a trade with Houston. When the deal was finalized on July 29, 2024, Houston received pitcher Yusei Kikuchi.

19 Abraham.

20 “Danny Jansen Appears for Blue Jays, Red Sox in Same Game,” ESPN News Services, August 26, 2024, https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/41003854/danny-jansen-appears-blue-jays-red-sox-same-game.