TORONTO — The Matt Albers fan club seems to grow with each scoreless appearance, and with every exuberant reaction from the big White Sox right-hander when he comes off the mound.
It started when he threw his gum after relief appearances in the opening series at Oakland and escalated when he came off pumped up after pitching two scoreless innings against his former team, the Cleveland Indians, on April 9 at U.S. Cellular Field.
Fans now watch Albers, who set the Sox record for consecutive scoreless appearances with his 30th in the eighth inning of a 7-5 over the Toronto Blue Jays Monday, come off the mound. Teammates do as well, and when Albers (6-1, 225) stormed into the visitors dugout after making an athletic defensive play on Ezequiel Carrera’s bunt, the TV feed in Toronto caught him yelling, ‘[expletive] like a cat!”
Twitterverse pounced all over it like, well, a cat.
“I didn’t see the video,” said manager Robin Ventura, who appeared to put his down suppressing a smile after he congratulated Albers. “I had the real thing. The real thing is always much better.”
When it comes to fielding his position, Albers is the real deal.
“A few people have been bunting on him probably thinking he can’t get off the mound,” Ventura said. “He believes he’s a cat.”
While Albers doesn’t look the part of a great athlete, he’s more athletic than some pitchers. He also fielded a popped up bunt on the third base side of the mound and doubled the Twins’ Eduardo Escobar off first at Minnesota.
“No, he can get over and get it,” Ventura said. “That play right there [Monday], I’ve seen a lot of people not make that play. He’s a good fielding pitcher. And when he gets he can throw a strike.
“There are skinnier guys that are less athletic than him.”
Albers said his animated reaction in the dugout was just being “pumped up watching our guys come back from being down 5-1 and scoring five runs right there to go ahead for the lead and then come in.”
Matt “Big Cat” Albers?
“I was just joking, just ‘like a cat off the mound,’ ” he said. “The position players don’t usually give pitchers much credit for being athletes, so I was just having some fun with it because they were all pretty excited about it. That was the main thing, just yelling, having fun. We’re having a lot of that this year.”
Jesse Crain, who rehabbed with Albers from injuries while they were in the Houston Astros organization in 2014, sent a congratulatory text to Albers. Crain had set the club record of 29 straight appearances in 2013.
“That was a classy move by Jesse,” Albers said.
