Bautista injured; Jays hold their breath

During a pre-game chat with his players Monday, Toronto Blue Jays manager John Farrell touched on the resiliency they’ve shown through the first half of the season, and how the current road trip through Boston and New York offered the chance to “further define ourselves.”

Hours later his seize-the-moment message twisted in a distinctively cruel way when Jose Bautista left what ended up as a 6-3 loss to the Yankees with a wrist injury, likely to at least land him on the disabled list if not knock him out for an extended period.

Injuries which have already ravaged the club’s pitching staff are now striking position players, starting right at the top.

“The X-rays are negative so it’s not a bone fracture, we’ve got to determine what it is as far as ligaments in the wrist area,” Farrell said in a sombre clubhouse afterwards. “He’s certainly got to go through more testing and imaging (Tuesday) morning before we have any real read on what he’s dealing with.”

Early indications are that the news from his MRI will not be good, the concern high enough to prompt the Blue Jays put top prospect Anthony Gose on standby for activation if and when Bautista is placed on the DL Tuesday, a source told sportsnet.ca.

The outfielder was removed from triple-A Las Vegas’s contest versus visiting Reno after one at-bat to board a red-eye for New York, just in case. He’ll return to the 51s if there’s good news on Bautista.

No one, of course, can replace Bautista and his loss will rock a team that’s already had its pitching staff ravaged by injury, but had avoided losing its position players.

The Blue Jays have placed 10 players on the disabled list this season, all pitchers save for fourth outfielder Ben Francisco, who missed a month with a hamstring issue. The offence has kept the team afloat by compensating for many of the shortcomings on the mound, but it’s going to be much harder to do that minus Bautista in the heart of the order.

“We’ve been fortunate as far as our everyday lineup is concerned as far as injuries,” said Farrell. “We’ve been relatively injury-free and it’s a big blow, there’s no doubt. But until we have an idea of how long this will be … we won’t know that fully until (Tuesday).”

The two-time home run champion left the game holding his left wrist after swinging at a 2-0 pitch in the seventh inning, ripping a ball about 20 feet to the wrong side of the foul pole before collapsing to the ground in agony.

Farrell and trainer George Poulis quickly hopped out of the dugout to tend to their slugger, who eventually walked into the dugout, left wrist in his right hand. Francisco took over and worked a walk before getting stranded, and the game slipped away from there.

“He didn’t say exactly when, but through the course of completing the swing he felt a little bit of a popping sensation,” said Farrell. “Certainly Jose’s not going to be ready to go (Tuesday) but we’ve just got to wait and see how long it could potentially be.”

Of course any absence will be too long, and regardless of the diagnosis Bautista will miss his first game of the season Tuesday, the only Blue Jays player to appear in every game this year.

And it begins with his team on a crucial stretch that had Farrell delivering a pep-talk like chat to the team before they took the field.

“I just talked to the team about it briefly, this has got a chance to define our season a little bit more,” Farrell said before the game. “One reminder was last year, when we talked about our vision and where we were going, there are going to be steps along the way and different sets of challenges that we’ll meet or we’ll encounter.

“This road trip presents one of those and I think this has a chance to further define us, not only who we are but what we’re capable of.”

That now holds true in more ways than Farrell had intended.