You Can’t Help But Feel Bad For LaTroy Hawkins

LaTroy Hawkins is an all-around good guy — one of my favorite players that I’ve covered over the last two seasons. His spirit, willingness to put his team first and positive attitude will always come to mind when thinking about LaTroy. You can’t help but feel bad for him however, especially with what has happened thus far in the postseason.

Hawkins, 42, announced during his time with the Rockies that this would be his final season in the Majors. He wants to spend more time around his family, yet he still has some baseball left in the tank. LaTroy has taken incredible care of his arm over his Major League career and it shows, pitching in over 1,042 regular season games.

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His fastball still has some zip on it but this postseason hasn’t been kind to the veteran.

Hawkins made one appearance in the ALDS vs. Texas, yielding two runs on three hits in just two-thirds of an inning. His next appearance came against the Kansas City Royals in Game 1 of the ALCS — giving up two runs on two hits in one inning of work.

Fast-forward to Game 4 Tuesday night — Kansas City absolutely put a pounding on Hawkins and the Blue Jays. Hawkins was on the short side of the stick yet again, recording an INF for the game. If you folk don’t know what INF means, it’s definitely not infield. Instead, INF basically means a pitcher gives up runs, hits or walks without recording an out.

In Game 4, Hawkins gave up three runs on two hits, including one walk. Hawkins ERA in the 2015 postseason skyrocketed all the way up to 45.00.

Like I said, you can’t help but not feel bad for LaTroy after the amount of work he has put in to get to this point. His Blue Jays trail the Royals 3-1 in the best of seven for the right to go to the World Series. Hopefully LaTroy and his Blue Jays can turn it around because who doesn’t want to see LaTroy pitch in the World Series — he deserves it.