BALTIMORE – Ernie Clement doesn’t want to let anybody down.
Perhaps that quality dogged him early in his baseball career, when he tried and failed to establish himself with the Cleveland Guardians and Oakland Athletics. And minus a top-line skill that will pry open a window and keep it open – such as the promise of consistent power, or blazing speed, or savant-like defensive ability – Clement found professional appreciation elusive.
And that makes what’s happening now in Toronto even more remarkable.
Such as Blue Jays fans lining up more than three hours ahead of gametime to snag a giveaway hockey jersey bearing Clement’s name and No. 22. Or a group of rabid supporters who learned of Clement’s penchant for walking from his residence to Rogers Centre and timed it up to stroll alongside him to work.
Or the notion that he’s beloved on two shores of Lake Ontario – within the circular confines of Rogers Centre and the gorgeous city surrounding it, along with Monroe County, New York, which presented him the key to the municipality after one of Rochester’s favorite sons became an international baseball hero.
It can be a lot, even for a 30-year-old who sweated out years in the minors to gain this opportunity. So Clement takes none of it for granted, even as he continues establishing himself as a star player – and a Toronto icon.
“I feel the love. It’s much appreciated and I hope I’m reciprocating it enough,” Clement tells USA TODAY Sports. “Because I love my time there. It feels more and more like home every time I go there and stay there.
“I have so much fun in the city. It’s so much fun playing in front of those fans.”
And as this season lurches toward the halfway point, it’s clear this is no fleeting love affair.
Clement has followed up his record-setting 30-hit 2025 postseason by leading the American League in both hits and doubles. He’s the hardest man to strike out in the AL, fanning just 8.2% of the time, and has played a key role in keeping the defending pennant winners afloat in a season ravaged by injury.
These Blue Jays are now 29-31, lurking in third place in the AL East. For now, it’s a near repeat of their 2025 arc, when they started 31-29, got healthy, won 94 games and the division and rode it all the way to Game 7 of the World Series.
The ride stopped there, coming as close to a championship as the two or so feet Clement’s ninth-inning fly ball needed to clear the wall in left center field with the bases loaded in the bottom of the ninth inning. The Dodgers’ Andy Pages leaped to gather it in, the prelude to an 11-inning heartbreaking defeat.
After a tearful night, the club scattered for the winter, many decamping to their offseason homes in sunnier, baseball-friendly climes.
Clement went out for Buffalo wings.
Have a day, Ernie Clement
It’s roughly 150 miles from Rochester to Toronto, even less than that as the Canadian geese might fly across Lake Ontario. So it was a strange bit of serendipity that Clement’s career would wind up so close to home, even if his hometown might lean more Yankees than Blue Jays.
The Buffalo Bills are the tie that binds, and that’s how Clement ended up in the Pittsford Pub less than 24 hours after baseball heartbreak, watching the Bills-Chiefs game, sans entourage.
Clement has surely grown to appreciate Toronto’s cosmopolitan flair, and the chance to get a world-class meal from virtually any cuisine.
But still.
“I will say, there’s no wings like the Buffalo spots, the Rochester spots,” he says.
Indeed, Clement stays true to his hometown. Three weeks after the World Series, there he was, making an appearance on behalf of the Rochester Red Wings to promote small business Saturday and goose ticket sales for the Class AAA affiliate of the Washington Nationals.
It was also declared Ernie Clement Day in Monroe County, complete with key.
Campy stuff, to be sure, all of it buttressing the notion that Clement’s a regular cat, a vibe that only accentuates his connection with Jays fans.
Yet looks can be deceiving.
Clement is also a scratch golfer, an accomplished hockey player, and can hoop a little.
“Just one of those guys who’s a sneaky-freak athlete,” says Blue Jays ace Kevin Gausman. “You might walk by him on the street and think he’s not a guy who plays in the big leagues, let alone leads the American League in hits.
“That’s really cool.”
The fans agree. They gravitated strongly toward a group of Blue Jays casually known as the “roommates” – Clement and utilityman Davis Schneider, and former first baseman Spencer Horwitz among them.
Soon, Clement integrated his Rogers Centre walk into his daily routine, which often includes a stop for an iced cold brew. Sometimes he’ll drive, too, if only to maintain an anonymity that’s increasingly shrinking.
'I proved that I belong'
There’s no plaque for being the least-famous player on a world-class team.
Yet that was the spot Clement found himself in this spring, when, coming off his 30-hit postseason, Team USA manager Mark DeRosa determined he had to have Clement for his World Baseball Classic roster.
Suddenly, Clement was a formerly itinerant player surrounded by MVPs, his 6-foot frame dwarfed by the likes of Paul Skenes and Aaron Judge, his pedigree admittedly falling short of stars like Bryce Harper and Alex Bregman.
Clement saw it as both challenge and opportunity.
It was a startling bit of company to keep, the ability to absorb best practices from some of the greatest players on the globe. And on the flip side, Clement – who got on base in three of seven plate appearances and scored three runs in four games – saw it as a chance for affirmation.
“Those are the best players in the world and there’s a reason behind it – they work their tails off. I was really fortunate to be around them,” he says. “I proved that I belong. That I can fit in with guys like that, with the best players in the world. I can help any team win. I feel like anytime I got in there, I helped that team win.
“That’s my mindset every single day here. Every time I step on that field, I just want to help us win.”
The Blue Jays certainly believe so. The club lost Bo Bichette to free agency, a key hole in both their lineup and defensive alignment. While Clement has settled in at second base, he regularly plays shortstop against left-handed starters, has played eight games at third and even 15 games at first base in 2025.
“He puts his ego aside – if he even has an ego,” says closer Louis Varland. “He’s willing to do whatever it is for the team as long as the team wins.
“He’s that kind of guy, which is the best ever.”
Ernie Clement, All-Star?
There’s one more honorific awaiting Clement, an appropriate coda to a year that saw him crowned a postseason hero, a WBC rep and Monroe County king for a day.
Clement leads all primary AL second basemen in average (.300), OPS (.771), slugging and wRC+ (113). His first trip to the All-Star Game would seem to be in order, particularly with a Blue Jays fan base clicking his name however many times their Rogers 5G Internet will allow.
It’s the next logical step for a player maximizing his window.
“As a guy who has been DFA’d,” says Gausman, “I feel like I have a different appreciation for it. There aren’t many guys who get that many second chances, especially as a position player, unfortunately.
“He’s a guy that really, from the day he came over, everybody knew the talent he had. His unique ability to not strike out. But you’ve seen him get more comfortable, more confident. Success comes with that.
“But he’s turned himself into such a complete player.”
Clement has essentially grown up with this Blue Jays team, allowed runway by manager John Schneider to produce 3.3 WAR in their 88-loss 2024 season, and then turning into a 30-hit monster in the 2025 postseason.
As success came, so, too, did a certain freedom.
“Ever since I’ve been here, they haven’t tried to change who I am and the kind of hitter I am. They let me be me,” says Clement. “Schneids and all the hitting coaches I’ve had here have helped me lean into my strengths.
“I show up to the field every day trying to prove the manager right.”
He also has a few thousand Torontonians backing him up on a given day.
When the Blue Jays distributed 15,000 Clement No. 22 hockey sweaters for an April game, the line stretched away from Rogers Centre and well into the city. (Why a club that consistently draws 40,000 fans would distribute just 15,000 souvenir giveaways is another question).
The sweaters are now going for $235 to $360 on eBay, an unscientific yet telling measure for the fanbase’s adulation.
“The city has been great to me,” says Clement. “I’m lucky to be there.”
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Ernie Clement's star rises for Blue Jays after record-setting playoffs
