Blue Jays: Reese McGuire recalled, Luke Maile to IL

The Toronto Blue Jays have recalled Reese McGuire, after back up catcher Luke Maile landed on the 10 day IL with a left oblique strain.

Luke Maile suffered a left oblique strain while at batting practice today, and according to Dan Shulman, Reese McGuire is currently being flown into Toronto from Durham and should arrive sometime during today’s game.

It’s never good for a manager when a player goes down in warm-ups but that’s exactly what happened today to manager Charlie Montoyo, and it leaves the Blue Jays precariously thin at catcher for the game currently being played against the Tampa Bay Rays.

McGuire made his MLB debut last season posting a .290 batting average with two home runs over 31 at-bats. Reese has played exclusively this season in AAA Buffalo, batting .247 with five home runs and 29 RBI’s.  He immediately slots in behind Danny Jansen as the team’s number two backstop.

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Luke Maile has had a difficult 2019 campaign posting a .153 batting average over 111 at-bats for the Blue Jays. Maile was far more productive for the Blue Jays in 2018, hitting .248 with a .333 on-base percentage.

It’s likely that Maile will keep his job upon return from injury unless management decides to DFA him due to his poor performance this season. However, I would suspect that Blue Jays management will want to keep McGuire’s reps up in Buffalo instead of getting log-jammed behind the often played Danny Jansen. Jansen is just cutting his teeth in the MLB and has seen the lion’s share of reps behind the plate this season.

Yet, it could be possible for McGuire to make a case for himself to stay on the big league roster this season if he can generate some offence for the Blue Jays with whatever opportunities he is given.

Sometimes a player can take a job and run away with it, and that is what the 2019 season is supposed to be about for a rebuilding Blue Jays. The timing is not great for Luke Maile a player struggling to find himself at the plate with fewer opportunities, but for an opportunistic Reese McGuire, the timing couldn’t be better.