A one-of-a-kind trade where nobody had to go very far

BALTIMORE -- The Blue Jays and Orioles both saved on airfare Tuesday.

Between games of their doubleheader at Oriole Park at Camden Yards, Baltimore dealt reliever Seranthony Domínguez to Toronto along with cash considerations for right-handed pitching prospect Juaron Watts-Brown.

Domínguez didn’t have a long walk from the home dugout to the away side. The 30-year-old reliever chose the tunnel route, picking up different members of the Blue Jays’ staff and a new camera with every few strides. There tend to be a couple of these moments each Trade Deadline, as a big name on the market makes the switch from competitor to teammate in an instant.

It only got more interesting when Domínguez had to make the long, awkward walk past his old bullpen and out to his new one. Some of the O’s relievers, like Andrew Kittredge and Keegan Akin, were shouting at him from their familiar perch.

“Yeah [they] were yelling at me a little bit like, ‘What are you doing? Where are you going?’ Stuff like that,” Domínguez said. "It made me laugh. I feel sad at the same time, too, because you have relationships with the people you’re around and they are really good people. I wish them the best.”

Thankfully, Domínguez hadn’t pitched yet in this series, so there are no hard feelings with a Blue Jays hitter he’d just mowed down, but he wasn’t alone in making his short walk to the other side. Down in Double-A, Watts-Brown did the same.

Toronto and Baltimore’s Double-A affiliates – the New Hampshire Fisher Cats and Chesapeake Baysox – were just hours from first pitch at Prince George’s Stadium in Bowie, Md., when the news broke.

Watts-Brown also made the walk across to meet his new team, but to balance out Domínguez, Watts-Brown had to go from the third-base side across to the first-base side and took a more complicated, above-ground route. Watts-Brown weaved through rows of seats behind the New Hampshire dugout, then finally got down toward field level where he continued to his new dugout, new manager, new teammates and new baseball life.

You can see the stress of this week on the faces of coaches and executives. John Schneider, for example, had to pivot from the high of acquiring Domínguez to the low of telling Chad Green, a veteran and clubhouse favorite, that he’d been designated for assignment. The manager had an appreciation, though, for what Domínguez had just gone through.

In most deals, the ride to the airport and flight to a new city gives a player half a day to call their families, sit in silence and exhale for a moment. Domínguez only had the length of a hallway.

“That’s a crazy day for him. That’s a whirlwind day,” Schneider said. “He probably got here an hour before the game, said ‘Hi’ real quick and was ready to go. I couldn’t imagine the emotions he’s feeling, and to go out and throw it the way he did was pretty impressive.”

There’s nothing easy about being traded, whether you’re a 23-year-old prospect or a seven-year veteran in the big leagues, but at least the travel was a breeze.