Ernie Clement

because he's just a little bit more locked in and he gets a little bit of luck around the fringes as well and next thing you know yeah it's a three hit day it's a four hit day in this case it's a five hit day you got to give him credit you know he has above average offensive production this season after this game you know it's not a ton of home runs it's not a gaudy on base but

the singles, the doubles, especially early in the year, you just know what you're going to get from Clemente at this point.

You don't necessarily know in a given game that he's going to go off, but over a long period of time, he's going to be a pretty solid average-ish hitter, and he's going to give you a lot of value with the glove, and that's an above-average starting player.

And he has been such a find for this franchise, considering they didn't give up anything to get him.

and they didn't necessarily expect much when they acquired him but over the years he's become not just a you know an everyday member of the lineup but also someone that this fan base has really really gravitated to he feels like an integral part of this team clement i believe prior to his blue jays career he was dfa twice i want to say right and he starts for sure once so twice

sometimes you take for granted a player is able to play multiple positions and you kind of assume okay well they have the same basic athletic skills they're going to be more or less the same guy at all these different spots the reality with clement is that he's a fantastic third baseman he is a top-notch you know gold glove-ish caliber third baseman

And second base is just a position he has not played as much of the big league level.

He'd played less than 100 games before the season, whereas third base is somewhere he's slot in every day over the last couple of years.

There's less familiarity.

There's just fewer reps.

You know, he's got the lateral movement.

He's got the hands.

He can clearly throw because he can throw from shortstop and third base, which are more demanding on the arm.

It just might be a bit of a settling in process.

And it kind of goes to show how much confidence people have in Clement overall.

It's like, oh, of course, we'll just move them

away from the position he's been for multiple years at the gold glove level and he's going to be awesome over there too and when the season is said and done we may well say that about clement like he was fantastic at second base but it has been surprisingly bumpy in in the early going

but not nearly enough to have real existential concerns about it.

I'm with you.

An unbelievable career, really a legendary figure in baseball.