DUNEDIN, Fla. – Edwin Encarnacion greeted Todd Redmond with a home run to right-centre field in his first live batting practice session of the spring, and the Toronto Blue Jays slugger said Saturday his surgically repaired left wrist is nothing to worry about.
The procedure to clean up some torn cartilage took place in late September and about seven weeks later Encarnacion felt fine. He arrived at camp feeling “100 percent now, I feel ready to go,” something taking Redmond deep on Friday underlined to anyone who was concerned.
“Before I came here I knew I was ready to go because I was hitting BP in the Dominican and [had] a couple of live BPs and my swing looked great,” he said. “I didn’t worry, I knew I was going to be all right, I just wanted to make sure my wrist is ready to go and that (home run) made me more happy.”
Encarnacion was dogged through wrist problems early in his career and they helped derail his development. Given how key they are in hitting, injuries to wrists can be particularly problematic for baseball players, which is why they tend to cause unease.
“You never know whether it’s going to linger, what it’s going to lead to down the road,” said Blue Jays manager John Gibbons. “But he looks good right now.”
The wrist injury bothered Encarnacion on every swing he took, but he insists he never held any concern.
“This time it wasn’t a big surgery, it was a cleanup,” he said. “I know I’m going to be all right.”
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SPREAD IT AROUND: New hitting coach Kevin Seitzer preaches using the middle of the field, but that doesn’t mean he or the Blue Jays want their players to stop pulling the ball.
Case in point, Colby Rasmus.
“He is a pull hitter, but there are a lot of hits to left-centre field, too, it doesn’t mean you’re talking about slapping the ball the other way,” said manager John Gibbons. “If he’ll focus on the middle of the field, it frees a lot of things up and makes those guys better hitters. When you’re dead yank all the time and that’s the way you approach it, there are a lot of holes in those swings. You’re very vulnerable to the off-speed pitches and anything away. It doesn’t mean you can’t be a pull hitter but you need to take something the other way, as well.”
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SHORT HOPS: J.A. Happ will start for the Blue Jays in their spring opener Wednesday against the Philadelphia Phillies at Clearwater. … The Blue Jays will play an intrasquad game Monday.
