TORONTO — The Braves opened a weekend interleague series Friday in Toronto, where veteran Kelly Johnson made the first of the five stops that made him the only player who's ever played for every game in the American League East.
Not only that, he played for all five AL East teams in a span of 24 months.
Johnson played in Toronto for part of the 2011 season and all of 2012. He played for Tampa Bay in 2013. Then he knocked out the entire rest of the division in 2014, when he played parts of the season with the Yankees, Red Sox and Orioles.
“On Sept. 1, 2012, I was playing with the Blue Jays,” Johnson said. “By Sept. 1, 2014, I played for the Orioles, and that was everybody (in the AL East). It’s only been since (1998). But I’m the only guy that ever did it. Much less in a two-year period.”
Entering Friday’s series opener, Johnson had played 107 games at Toronto’s Rogers Centre and hit .242 with a .320 on-base percentage and 13 homers in 380 at-bats.
Another Braves veteran, longtime former Oriole Nick Markakis, entered the series with a .292 average in 295 at-bats at Rogers Centre, with 30 extra-base hits (six homers), a .386 OBP and .444 slugging percentage in 77 games.
