TORONTO – Competing with his Toronto Blue Jays teammates in spirit, if not in body, while he recovers from a strained left oblique is giving Teoscar Hernandez a unique vantage point on his club’s daily trip through high leverage.
“I miss my boys, my teammates, but seeing them competing and winning those close games it makes me feel better about taking the time to get ready because I know they can handle it,” the all-star right-fielder said after a second straight day of batting practice. “They've been doing a pretty good job and I'm just happy for everybody. And it feels good getting those close games. That's what we're here for. We're getting ready for playoffs and that's playoff baseball. I'm just trying to continue to get better and get with the team soon.”
When exactly that is remains a moving target, although Hernandez is thinking that after he hits off the high-velocity pitching machine Friday and Saturday and recovers Sunday, he could depart for a quick rehab stint and perhaps rejoin the Blue Jays in Cleveland late next week.
The steady gains he’s made in recent days will need to continue for that timeline to play out and Hernandez knows better than to take needless risks. While exit velocities of 100 m.p.h. jumped off his bat during BP, he conceded that “I’m still a little scared to go for it with everything I've got. There's time yet to go before I try to go 100 per cent.”
Helping him be patient has been the Blue Jays’ record without him, which dropped to 8-5 after a 7-1 loss to the Boston Red Sox on Wednesday night before a crowd of 20,468. It’s not that they haven’t missed him – they very much have, especially when runs are hard to come by – but they’ve found different ways to eke out wins and “that's all that matters,” he said.
Wednesday’s setback was the latest contest where things could have gone either way, as Ross Stripling delivered yet another strong performance in place of the injured Hyun Jin Ryu while duelling his former Texas A&M roommate Michael Wacha for five innings.
Stripling, a groomsman at Wacha’s off-season wedding, allowed just a single run, when a Rafael Devers double cashed in a two-out Xander Bogaerts infield single in the first.
He gave up five hits in all while striking out seven and getting up to 84 pitches. A pivotal escape came in the third, when Boston loaded the bases with one out, but the right-hander rallied to strike out Devers and J.D. Martinez, ending the threat.
“My game plan against really everyone but especially these guys is mixing in a little bit of everything,” said Stripling, who had 17 swinging strikes, nine of them on his fastball. “I feel like I was able to throw enough off-speed, enough changeups to righties that made my fastball play up. I was able to get out that big spot there in the third with two fastballs. Normally, I actually don't lean on fastballs in those situations much, but felt like I had them in between my off-speed stuff and heaters there.”
The Blue Jays knotted things up in the bottom half when Vladimir Guerrero Jr., moments after fouling a pitch off his right foot and raising concern by falling to the ground in agony, beat out a potential double-play relay at first, allowing Tyler Heineman to cross.
“That’s baseball, the next pitch is a groundball where he’s going to have to run hard,” manager Charlie Montoyo said of Guerrero. “It’s funny how that works but he got the RBI. He’s fine.”
The offence ran dry for the Blue Jays from there while Trent Thornton surrendered a pair in the sixth, Julian Merryweather coughed up two more in the eighth and Andrew Vasquez another in the ninth, leading to just their second loss in the past eight outings.
Counter to the relative success the Blue Jays have had through that period is the makeshift nature of their offence. Zack Collins, in part helping cover Danny Jansen’s absence, hit in the cleanup spot behind Guerrero for the fourth time this season. Matt Chapman, who’s bounced between five, six and seven in the order as he works to get untracked, was in the seventh spot for the fifth time, bumped down by Raimel Tapia, the fourth outfielder now with the seventh-most plate appearances on the roster. Gosuke Katoh, who collected his first big-league hit, and Tyler Heineman, who singled and scored in the third, batted eighth and ninth.
Complicating things is that Bo Bichette hasn’t yet found a groove, going 1-for-4, while Guerrero has remained productive but hasn’t hit a homer since April 15. Little wonder the Blue Jays headed into the day with the most one-run games in the majors, going 6-2 in them.
“It all began in spring training, we didn't have the at-bats we normally have,” said Hernandez. “I don't think all the guys have their timing yet. I don't think they're at the level they normally are. But we're going to get there soon and we are going to get even better.”
Hernandez’s return will be part of that.
Back in the fateful April 13 contest when he was hurt, he took one swing against Gerrit Cole, appeared to feel something, stayed in the box, and then suffered the strain on his next rip.
“I wasn't expecting that it was going to be my oblique,” he said. “That wasn't the first time that I feel something when I swing. That's why I thought I was OK. I was dealing with soreness before that in my back. I've been playing like that for the last five, six years, so for me it's normal. I never thought it was going to be my oblique, but unfortunately it was.”
That the injury wasn’t worse, and hasn’t proved to be more costly for the Blue Jays is both to their fortune and credit. Yet there are games in which Hernandez’s absence is more glaring, reinforcing just how much impact he brings.
