Blue Jays call up No. 5 prospect Alford

Anthony Alford began the 2018 season on the Blue Jays' Major League disabled list. He'll end it in the big league outfield.
The fifth-ranked Toronto prospect -- who began the season on the big league disabled list because of a hamstring strain -- was called up Monday by the big club in hopes of finishing a subpar season on a high note.
An added bonus is that the 2012 third-round Draft pick will get to play with his brother-in-law, Jonathan Davis.

Davis, a 15th-round pick in 2013, was called up by the Jays on Sept. 3. Now he gets a chance to play with Alford, whose wife's sister, Hannah, is married to Davis -- the club's No. 21 prospect. "He's my best friend," Alford told The Toronto Sun. "We've always said we're going to play in the bigs together one day and patrol the outfield together, and it's coming true. We're both here and now it's just of matter of going out there and playing and having fun."
Overall, the baseball's No. 89 prospect might not have described his 2018 season as fun. After earning a promotion to the Majors at the end of 2017, the Columbia, Mississippi, native was invited to big league Spring Training, but midway through camp strained his right hamstring and ended up on the DL.
He missed about a week of the Minor League season and eventually batted .240/.312/.344 with five homers, 34 RBIs, 22 doubles and 17 stolen bases in 105 games with Buffalo, although he improved to .264/.330/.362 after the All-Star break.
But now the former football star can impress his bosses at the highest level, and with the help of a family member.
"We've played at every level together, we roomed together, and in the offseason, we work out together because he's living in Mississippi now," Alford told the newspaper of Davis. "We train together all the time. I'm with him more than I am with my wife. He knows my swing, I know his swing really well, so I can tell him what I see whenever he's scuffling and vice versa."