The Toronto Blue Jays are making a few moves that affect mainly the top two teams in the organization: the big league club and the Triple-A team, the Buffalo Bisons.
Maicer Izturis injured his knee today coming down the steps from the field to the dugout. From what Scott Macarthur and others are saying, it sounds like the injury is pretty bad, mainly from how Izturis was reacting to treatment during the game and the fact that he said he felt two “pops.”
Had this injury occurred last year, I’m sure the Blue Jays would have welcomed the opportunity to get Maicer Izturis out of the lineup. This year is another story, however, as Izturis is playing much more up to the career standard that he had previously set, hitting .286/.324/.314 in 10 games with visibly better defense. Izturis was doing a nice job starting instead of Ryan Goins against left-handed pitchers. Let’s face it: if we’ve decided that second base is going to be a sinkhole for offense this year, Izturis brings that level up a little bit.
But then Jose Reyes went and got injured and the Jays promoted Jonathan Diaz to backup but has gotten more and more playing time due to his defensive wizardry. Diaz is actually getting on base more often than Izturis and, with his ability to play at short or second, he was going to get a lot of the reps to replace Reyes. Well, with Izturis on the shelf, it’s been announced that our good friend Mune (Munenori Kawasaki) is back with the club, at least until Jose Reyes finishes his rehab. It’s already been reported (as in this story by John Lott) that Reyes was “very happy” with the way his workouts have been going and could be back by the end of the week.
So the end result of the first move is Izturis out and Kawasaki in.
The other move that was reported was the J.A. Happ has been pronounced fit for duty and will return to the team as the eighth man in the bullpen (which resurrects my complete Frankenstarter idea). What this does is send ol’ Turkey Bacon himself, catcher Erik Kratz back to the minors.
I get it. Three catchers is too many but we’re still sacrificing bench depth in order to keep an out-of-options pitcher on the club. Not my favourite use of manpower.
Another move from today that I reported in my report/preview was that RHP Mickey Storey was activated off the 7-day DL by the Buffalo Bisons and LHP Richard Bleier was demoted to New Hampshire. Storey had a rough outing for the Bisons today (read about it tomorrow in the recap) but he’s always been very good and should be one of the leaders in the Bisons’ bullpen.
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