• Josh Donaldson healing fast
• Jays easing Russell Martin into camp
• Bo Schultz feeling strong
DUNEDIN, Fla. – As the Toronto Blue Jays await the return of one star player, they’re taking precautionary measures to ensure that others stay healthy.
Josh Donaldson continues to progress from a right calf strain, with a long-toss session Friday and continued treatment on the affected area. The Blue Jays are pleasantly surprised with progress of the all-star third baseman, who’s been walking around with apparent ease.
“I’m not sure of the exact (return) date, but he’s moving better than I expected,” manager John Gibbons said. “He’s walking around. The trainer said he’s looking good.”
Still, the timeline for Donaldson’s spring debut hasn’t changed.
“I wouldn’t think you’d see him out there for a couple of weeks anyways, but he’s progressed pretty good,” Gibbons said.
The Blue Jays are easing in a wide range of regular players, including four-fifths of their starting rotation. Marcus Stroman will be the first big-league starter to start a spring game Monday, with Casey Lawrence, Joe Biagini and Brett Oberholtzer taking the ball for the first three games on the schedule.
Along those lines, the Blue Jays intend to ease Russell Martin into spring training by limiting his defensive workload. He’s expected to start the team’s Grapefruit League home opener Sunday, but the Blue Jays are going to keep his innings behind the plate to a minimum.
“The plan with him anyway is to limit the catching down here, just make sure he has enough at-bats, even if that means as we get into the spring he goes to the minor leagues quite a bit to DH,” Gibbons said. “That was our plan and that’s something he’s in favour of.”
Given that Martin knows the Blue Jays’ pitching staff intimately, he doesn’t need to spend as much time familiarizing himself with their arsenals. And after catching 994 regular season innings in 2015 and 1069.1 more in 2016, the Blue Jays will be counting on him for another heavy workload in 2017. Reducing that wear and tear now could theoretically have long-lasting benefits.
Martin has a built-in break through March 9-12, when he’ll join the Canadian World Baseball Classic team in Miami for a few days. He’ll be providing moral support instead of playing shortstop, as he had hoped, but he may get some infield reps eventually. Gibbons has used Martin for brief appearances at second and third base in recent seasons, and he’s not ruling anything out for 2017.
“I did tell him I’d try during the season to get him out to short,” Gibbons said.
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Schultz feels stronger
Reliever Bo Schultz feels considerably stronger now than he did this time last year, when he was still rehabbing from off-season hip surgery. He’s hoping that a more normal routine will help him rebound from a 2016 season that saw him post a 5.51 ERA in 16 games after returning from the injury.
“I was trying so hard to get back and get healthy that I pushed faster than I should have,” Schultz said.
Now out of options, Schultz is competing for one of two open bullpen spots on Toronto’s staff. If the Blue Jays don’t roster him, they’ll have to expose him to other teams, risking a waiver claim.
“It’s out of your control,” he said. “Worrying about it is just creating undue stress.”
A strong spring could suggest to Blue Jays decision makers that he can recapture the form he showed in 2015, when he posted a 3.56 ERA in 31 games for Toronto.
