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For Darwin Barney, it has always been about the hands.

Plunk him almost anywhere on the baseball diamond, in the infield or the outfield, and the Toronto Blue Jays supersub can be counted on to deliver a sound defensive effort.

Wednesday night at Rogers Centre against the Los Angeles Angels, Barney lined up at second base, his preferred position, for the 30th time this season.

Barney was subbing for Devon Travis, who was sitting out his second straight game nursing a sore knuckle on his right hand.

It was hardly a step back for the Blue Jays as Barney won a Gold Glove for his defensive prowess at second base in 2012, when he was an everyday performer in the National League for the Chicago Cubs.

His presence, however, did nothing to spark a lethargic Blue Jays outfit that dropped a dispiriting 8-2 decision to the last-placed Angels, who outhit Toronto 17-9 in this sad affair.

This season, Barney has also started 18 games for the front-running Blue Jays at third base and has logged 17 at shortstop and four in left field.

Nobody else on the club has come close to displaying that range.

Barney was even was sent to the mound by manager John Gibbons earlier this year, during the 19-inning marathon against the Cleveland Indians on July 1, after the Blue Jays had run out of pitchers.

While that was not exactly an artistic success – Barney surrendered the winning home run in the top of the 19th to absorb his first, and what will probably be his only, major-league loss – it is a testament to the man's versatility.

Barney has always been known, in baseball parlance, for having soft hands, an attribute that perhaps, in some way, can be traced to his youth when it was discovered he had an aptitude for playing the piano.

And we're not talking Chopsticks here. Check out a video on YouTube in which Barney can be seen pounding out a serious piece of music on the ivories.

"When I was a kid, I took lessons for two or three years and I absolutely hated it," Barney said. "My mom made me go and I never practised. I hated recitals."

But Barney had a knack for playing by ear and, even today, with a bit of practice, can play a song on the piano soon after hearing it on the radio.

"I just start messing around and I just play things that I like," he said. "I used to play a lot of Maroon 5, Coldplay – stuff like that."

Even though he is used to packed stadiums while playing baseball, Barney is loath to perform in public playing the piano, even in front of his teammates.

But Barney said he will break down every now and then and play the piano in the lobby of the downtown Toronto residence hotel where teammates Russell Martin and Jose Bautista also live.

"They have a grand piano … and we'll tinker around on that every once in a while," Barney said. "But if you were to pull one into the clubhouse and guys gathered around, I don't think I would be doing it.

"Russ can play a little bit, Russ does a little bit on it."

And Bautista?

"Nah, he listens and videotapes," Barney said. "We've got some pretty good videos of Russ dancing around to something I'm playing."

These days, Barney's focus is on the baseball field and helping the Blue Jays nail down a second consecutive playoff berth in the American League East. They entered play on Wednesday in a dead heat for first with the Boston Red Sox.

Barney was involved in some of the excitement last year after coming over to the Blue Jays in a trade with the L.A. Dodgers on Sept. 15. He got into 15 games, hitting .304, as Toronto made the postseason for the first time since 1993.

But since the trade was so late in the season, Barney was not eligible for the playoffs and had to watch from the sidelines as Toronto got to within two games of the World Series.

He said he is looking to rectifying that matter this season, but that the Blue jays still have plenty of work to do.

Wednesday night, the Blue Jays looked anything but like a playoff contender as starter Marco Estrada (7-6), pitching on seven-days rest, got slapped around for the second consecutive game to absorb the loss.

Estrada surrendered back-to-back home runs in the first inning to Mike Trout and Albert Pujols and the Jays could never recover.

For Pujols, the blast was his 584th of his career and moved him past Mark McGwire and into sole possession of 10th on the all-time home run leaders list.

With Toronto having recently gone to a six-man rotation to ease the workload on their starters, Estrada was working on seven days rest.

Gibbons, who has had to field repeated questions on the merit of a six-man rotation, was asked if he felt that may have been a factor in Estrada's spotty outing.

"Who the hell knows," Gibbons snapped, clearly exasperated. "I don't know, you don't know. You've got to move on from that because everybody's been good. It's getting a little tired, there's got to be more to the game than that.

"But who knows. I don't know, you don't know and I'm sure that he [Estrada] doesn't know. Get where I'm coming from? You can beat a dead horse all you want. I choose to be optimistic, move forward. One of those games, they outplayed us, every phase of it. It's not the first, won't be the last."

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