TORONTO, ON – MAY 21: Randal Grichuk #15 of the Toronto Blue Jays (Photo by Tom Szczerbowski/Getty Images)
The Blue Jays might want to have a chat with Randal Grichuk after he liked the last tweet you’d want a teammate liking.
Toronto Blue Jays fans and outfielder Randal Grichuk, who is signed until 2023, aren’t on the best of terms after he hit just .232 with a 93 OPS+ and -0.8 dWAR in 2019. Liking a tweet from Aubrey Huff that attacks former Blue Jays pitcher Marcus Stroman, currently a New York Met, won’t help the Canadiens gravitate towards him.
After Stroman unleashed some incendiary comments about Huff in response to another one of his outrageous claims, Huff brought up an alleged incident at Blue Jays Spring Training in 2019 in which Stroman was reported to have told the strength coach to kick minor leaguers out of “his” weight room. Grichuk, seemingly forgetting how off the wall Huff can get, liked the tweet, putting him right in the crosshairs of Blue Jays fans.
Randal Grichuk seems to be a fan of the controversial Huff.
Huff’s Twitter account can be described as an infinite well of nothing, as it is a lethal cocktail of overcompensating male machismo, unhinged misogynistic rants about how women “don’t belong” in male pro sports, support of various right-wing conspiracy theories, and shockingly appalling tweets about kidnapping Iranian women, which he later tried to claim was a joke.
One of two things happened, both of which look equally bad for Grichuk. Possibility No. 1 is he was unaware of the reputation Huff has made for himself, which is unlikely and naive considering how well-known he had become, and just wanted to get another dig in at his former teammate. Possibility No. 2 is that he was aware of Huff’s behavior and decided to endorse it with a like. It’s hard to tell which is worse.
Grichuk is under no obligation to get along with Stroman. Having said that, he has to know how radioactive Huff has become since he’s retired, and even the simple act of liking one of his tweets carries with it an unspoken stamp of endorsement that is sure to ruffle a few feathers.