A lejandro Kirk finished jogging from first base to home and, not long after he touched the plate, the Toronto Blue Jays catcher turned to face his teammate Daulton Varsho, who was rounding third and on his way home. Varsho had just hit his 13th home run of the season, and he started laughing when he set eyes on Kirk. The catcher, wearing a big grin, pointed to his teammate and then high-fived him after Varsho scored to make it 10-1 Blue Jays. Kirk’s reaction to the two-run shot may seem pretty standard, but not only did Toronto have a nine-run lead against the Texas Rangers in mid-August, this was also a level of excitement rarely exhibited by the teammate everybody calls “Kirky.”

“That’s when I’ve seen him amped: when he doesn’t have to run hard around the bases,” Varsho says of Kirk, w

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