TORONTO – What started as fatigue and was followed first by a planned day off and then an unplanned day off led to an MRI that revealed what the Toronto Blue Jays, upon an initial reading of the results, called a re-aggravation of George Springer’s right quad injury.
Quite a convoluted chain of events for the star outfielder, who was put back on the injured list about an hour before the Toronto Blue Jays took the field for Wednesday night’s 9-4 win over the Oakland Athletics.
That he’ll be sidelined at least another week – although surely more given the strain’s recurrence – is without a doubt disappointing, but Springer is a gamer, quad issues can be complicated and injuries happen. Remember too that healing and maintaining the human body can’t be made foolproof, no matter how robust a high-performance department a team runs.
What makes Springer’s return to the IL hard to stomach is the opaque manner in which his status was communicated since he came out of Sunday’s 7-2 win over the Atlanta Braves. He went from no-big-deal fatigue to fine and improving, to not injured as badly as before, to having a similar injury to the one before.
There’s room for stories to change as information changes, but this was like catching a trailer for a rom-com and discovering in the theatre that it’s actually a slasher flick.
Blue Jays Newsletter
How gory this ends up being for the Blue Jays depends on how much time Springer is sidelined for.
They’ve certainly missed him this week in Oakland, where they managed only five runs in a pair of losses to open the four-game series, and were under wraps most of Wednesday before rallying in an opportunistic, five-run eighth against the American League West leaders.
Reese McGuire, added to the roster just before the game, opened the frame with a walk against Lou Trivino, pinch-runner Jonathan Davis advanced to second on a Marcus Semien base hit and after a Bo Bichette fielder’s choice, scored on a wild pitch to tie the game 3-3.
After Vladimir Guerrero Jr., was walked intentionally and Bichette stole third, Teoscar Hernandez ripped a go-ahead RBI single, Randal Grichuk’s base hit extended the lead, Cavan Biggio laid down a clever bunt to squeeze in another before Lourdes Gurriel Jr.’s run-scoring groundout made it 7-3.
Guerrero added a two-run double in the ninth on a 114 m.p.h. rocket that froze Mark Canha standing in left field some 320 feet away.
The outbursts ensured the Blue Jays didn’t waste the six strong innings Robbie Ray gave them.
The lefty continues to shove his fastball down the throats of opponents, averaging 95.4 m.p.h. on a pitch that generated 11 whiffs on 31 swings. His slider generated another six misses while another came off his curveball, leading to nine strikeouts, and, pivotally, he didn’t walk a batter for the third straight start.
But Ramon Laureano ambushed a cookie first-pitch heater for a solo shot in the first, Matt Chapman rocked a bad-idea slider in the fourth and Sean Murphy’s bloop single in the sixth put the Athletics up 3-2.
Chris Bassitt looked like he might be in for a rough night when Hernandez and Grichuk capped a run of four straight hits with RBI singles, but he locked the Blue Jays down for the next six innings, allowing only two more hits.
The Blue Jays have now used the injured list 16 times for 15 different players and another may be coming after David Phelps took the mound for the bottom of the eighth and threw one warmup pitch before appearing to feel something in his pitching arm.
After a quick conference, he came off the field and his status wasn’t immediately known. Par for the course in this season of relentless attrition, where the stories around an injury may change but the parade to the injured list stays consistent.
