Blue Jays: Injury updates, Tulo, Happ & More

The Blue Jays have had their fair share of early season injuries, as the bad news continued to pile up for the struggling club to open the season.

The Blue Jays haven’t had the best of luck with injuries thus far this season, but fortunately everything that has happened has been relatively minor. As we all know, Josh Donaldson remains out nursing his calf injury, and Aaron Sanchez continues to try and rid his pitching hand of the meddlesome blisters that have plagued him the last couple seasons.

In addition to those two injuries, we saw J.A. Happ hit the disabled list earlier in the week with a sore elbow. By all accounts, the move was precautionary, and the club believed Happ would only miss one start.

On Friday, we learned that Happ had a minor set back during rehab, and won’t be return to the mound in a best case scenario, after one missed start. When asked by Bluejays.com, pitching coach Pete Walker filled us in on the details of Happ’s situation.

“It depends on how it feels, we want to get it out there, get the inflammation out before he throws again. We really thought it was out, but he made his 20 throws, but he just didn’t feel quite where he needed to be. So we’re gonna push it back a few days.

It doesn’t sound as though things have gotten any worse for last season’s 20 game winner, but he isn’t quite ready to advance in his rehab, meaning his miss at least one more start.

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Unfortunately for the Blue Jays, things didn’t stop there either as Troy Tulowitzki had to leave Friday’s game in the 8th inning with apparent hamstring tightness. Tulo’s legs have been a bit of an issue throughout his career, much like Donaldson’s calves, so monitoring the injury and nipping in the bud is likely best for the Blue Jays, even if the timing is horrific.

Tulo has been one of the better hitters for the Jays thus far this season, hitting .263/.295/.363 in the early going, but also looking as comfortable as anyone at the dish. He hasn’t lit the world on fire, but when you look at the team stats, his ability to avoid the strikeout has been an uncommon thing, as he’s whiffed just 6 times thus far this season.

Climbing out of an early season deficit isn’t the easiest thing to do, but it’s even more difficult without 4 of your best players, including Sanchez, Happ, Donaldson and Tulowitzki. Fortunately, none of the injuries appear to be of the long-time variety, so hopefully the Jays can weather the storm in their absence.

Next: Are the Blue Jays well prepared for a rebuild?

Nothing about this season has made much sense in Blue Jays’ land anyway, so a winning streak with a roster full of Triple A players would make as much sense as anything that’s happened thus far.