Yes, Danny Jansen will play for both teams in Blue Jays-Red Sox showdown Monday

Matt Hanifan / MLB / August 26, 2024

<a rel= — Danny Jansen was traded from the Toronto Blue Jays to the Boston Red Sox in late July. (Credit: Troy Taormina-USA TODAY Sports)

Yes, Danny Jansen will play for both teams in Blue Jays-Red Sox showdown Monday

Have you seen any professional athlete play for two different teams in single game? No? Well, you’re about to see history Monday afternoon.

In an odd coincidence, catcher Danny Jansen was the catcher for the Toronto Blue Jays during a June 26 game that got suspended due to heavy rain. Over a month later, Jansen was traded to the Boston Red Sox, a division rival.

Jansen was in the batter’s box for Toronto when the game was evidently suspended. It was an 0-1 count against Red Sox starter Kutter Crawford, fouling off a cutter … ironically enough. There was one out in the inning with one man on base.

“Monday, [Jansen] will play Game 1 by the way, for all the people that have been looking at history,” Red Sox manager Alex Cora said last week, according to MLB.com’s Ian Browne. “I’ve been getting texts from Jayson Stark [of the Athletic] and [ESPN’s] Buster Olney, ‘Is he catching?’ Yeah he’s catching. Let’s make history.”

Jansen will be catching for Reese McGuire–no longer on the 40-man roster after getting DFA’d when Boston acquired Jansen–batting 9th.

“I didn’t know (much about this) at first,” Jansen said, according to Jayson Stark of The Athletic. “I was like, ‘What — am I going to have to go on the other team?’ I didn’t know what was going to happen. It just kind of caught me off guard about the whole situation. Because when I got traded, it was just a whirlwind at first, and I didn’t think about it. But then, once that stuff settled, I heard about (the suspended-game scenario). And I was like, ‘Oh, that’s cool. That’s a unique thing that’s going to happen.’”