Bautista DL Threat: Jays (64-50) vs. Rays (46-65)

7 years ago

Photo Credit: Dan Hamilton-USA TODAY Sports

Jose Bautista isn’t in the lineup for the Blue Jays tonight, and it is indeed because of an injury he picked up in last night’s game. (UPDATE: Jose will indeed go on the DL. The team is hopeful he only needs the requisite 15 days. Junior Lake will take his spot on the roster… for now.)

Presumably the incident in question was when he seemed to catch a cleat on the turf and fell over. Anecdotally, I though he looked somehow even slower than usual after that play, and while I speculated in today’s Daily Duce that maybe it was an aggravation of the “turf toe” injury that saw him him on the DL in June and July, it turns out it was his knee.

Barry Davis tweets that it was actually Bauista’s knee that was injured in the incident, and that at the time of this writing he is awaiting the results of an MRI. Arden Zwelling adds that, since Bautista didn’t leave yesterday’s game after the incident, it sounds like the injury worsened overnight. Yet another trip to the DL is a possibility (and we should know what the MRI says by around 5:30, we’re told).

The Jose Bautista Losing Himself Money Tour 2016 continues!

This is, obviously, a blow for a Blue Jays’ lineup that has been struggling of late, and while things are nowhere close to as gloomy as I’m sure this is going to make some people, it’s obviously not great news. Bautista hasn’t been himself yet this season, and the Jays’ offence has been rather fine without him, but individual players’ performances will ebb and flow, and maybe it was Bautista who (along with Devon Travis) was about to pull his teammates out of this funk (or at least mitigate their funk by truly starting to put it together).

He still might, of course. A DL trip is not yet set in stone. But yeah… not good. Not real good.

The Jays’ roster crunch, due to the six-man rotation, doesn’t do them any favours here, either. Just as with Kevin Pillar, even if the injury ends up needing only a handful of days, it’s going to be hard to make Bautista day-to-day and keep him on the active roster with the bench as short as it is. (This is, it must be noted, one of the reasons why the six-man rotation is almost never a good idea — which isn’t to say I’ve changed my tune on how much sense it makes in this case, just sayin’.)

Now let’s win this damn series with these damn pesky Rays already!

Scuttlebutt

I’m heading down to the game a bit early, so this is indeed your Game Threat.

Carlos Gomez, who has been dogshit this season, was just D’d FA by the Astros, so maybe there’s somebody you could take a flyer on if Bautista does indeed go down. There is also Puig, too. I love both those ideas, tbqh — or at least I half love them! — but it’s probably going to be Junior Lake and Darrell Ceciliani platooning out there, and maybe that’s even for the best.

Ezequiel Carrera — Zeke, as I like to call him — is still on the DL, FYI. He’s eligible to come off it on Tuesday, but John Gibbons told reporters this afternoon that he’ll need some time in Buffalo before he gets back.

Ben Wagner tweets a link to his chat with Drew Hutchison, in which the now-former Blue Jays starter recounts Toronto memories and how he’s hitting the reset button now that he’s in Pittsburgh(‘s organization).

Meanwhile, in other, more insufferable cities…

TV: Sportsnet
Next Game(s): Friday vs. Houston, 7:07 PM ET
AL East Standings: BAL (-), TOR (-), BOS (1.5), NYY (7), TBR (17.0)
And now, the lineups…