Russell Martin Placed On 10-Day DL, Mike Ohlman Recalled, Blue Jays Are Cursed Confirmed

Yet another Blue Jay is headed to the disabled list. This time, it’s Russell Martin. According to every beat reporter on Twitter, Russ is suffering from tightness in his left shoulder. Also, Casey Lawrence has been designated for assignment, presumably opening a spot on the 40-man roster for Mike Ohlman.

The team has called up Ohlman, who’s been hitting the shit out of the baseball for Triple-A Buffalo this season, to fill Martin’s spot. Through 23 games and 85 plate appearances, Ohlman has seven home runs and is slashing a .246/.388/.594 line. That said, only 13 of those games have been played behind the plate, and the other 10 as the designated hitter.

Ohlman was once a sort of highly touted prospect in the Baltimore Orioles system, but never really panned out. After the 2013 season, Ohlman was Baltimore’s ninth best prospect according to Baseball America, and most recently, he was the 30th ranked prospect for the St. Louis Cardinals after the 2015 season. His profile as a player was a bat-first catcher who was expected to ultimately transition to first base because his glove wasn’t good enough to catch at the major league level.

This means we’ll be seeing a lot more of Luke Maile. Obviously you don’t want Maile’s bat in the lineup everyday, but at least he’s good behind the plate, and Marcus Stroman spoke about how easy he was to pitch to. That’s all you can really ask for with a backup catcher, but not having Russ is going to leave another massive hole in the lineup.

The Jays now have five key players on the disabled list, and damn, it’s getting hard to see how they’re going to navigate through this. There still isn’t a timetable for Josh Donaldson or J.A. Happ’s returns, but apparently Aaron Sanchez will be back this weekend and Tulo isn’t far away. Godspeed to all of them.

Burn all of your bat flip merchandise. Phone Buck Showalter and apologize for the Zach Britton jokes. Do whatever you can. This team is cursed, and we need to do something to fix it.