Blue Jays suspend Pillar two games for homophobic slur

Following an outburst after striking out on Wednesday night that included a homophobic slur, Toronto Blue Jays outfielder Kevin Pillar has received a two-game suspension for his conduct. Sportnet’s Shi Davidi reported the club collaborated with the league on the decision.

The Blue Jays had the option of allowing the MLB to render a verdict, but decided instead to be proactive and engage with them, ultimately deciding to sit their leadoff hitter on the bench for two games.

The suspension itself is a modest one – which was likely to be the case considering no physical harm or intent to cause physical harm occurred. While there’s an argument to be made that the Blue Jays were too lenient, it would have been difficult to justify sitting down Pillar for the same four or five games that a pitcher would get for the seriously dangerous act of throwing at an opponent. Perhaps both crimes deserve stricter punishments, but all things considered the outfielder’s suspension is about as long as expected.

Prior to coming to that conclusion the team released the following statement:

Pillar also released a statement of his own about the incident, after doing a poor job of explaining himself postgame:

These words, while rather boilerplate, do cut to the heart of the issue and at least acknowledge the way his actions disrespected members of the LGBTQ community and alienated his fans and baseball fans everywhere. The statement reads like a document carefully crafted by a PR department, but Pillar and the Blue Jays deserve credit for recognizing that his first effort was inadequate.

While this Tweet from Pillar does not cancel out what he’s done, or guarantee that he’ll better himself in the future, it is the first step to redeeming himself. There’s a long way to go, but on Wednesday night it appeared he wasn’t entirely aware of the gravity of the error and simply wanted to move on. Now, Pillar seems to be headed in a more productive direction.