Blue Jays: It might be wise to shut down George Springer for a while

It’s not easy to take a star like George Springer out of the lineup, but it might be for the best if the Blue Jays try to let him heal now rather than later.

For anyone who watched Saturday’s broadcast, it wasn’t hard to see that the star centre fielder was labouring thanks to a sore elbow that he can’t seem to put behind him. He served as the designated hitter once again, and he was sporting a compression sleeve to help him be able to play through the pain.

As much as I admire that Springer is trying to be a veteran leader out there right now, it might be for the best if he spends some time on the Injured List to get as close to 100% as he can. That’s not an easy sacrifice to make when the Blue Jays are in the midst of a tight race for a playoff spot, but I think we also have to remember that there’s still a lot of regular season to be played. At 56-45 the Blue Jays still have 51 games left, and they need the 4x All-Star in the lineup as frequently as possible.

Will any of this impact the Blue Jays plans ahead of the August 2nd trade deadline? I’ll admit that it’s possible, and in an ideal world they might find a little more capable centre fielder than the back-up they have right now. Bradley Zimmer is an excellent defender and a speedy baserunner, but he’s one of the weaker hitters in the American League. Raimel Tapia, who figures to receive the bulk of the starts in centre if Springer misses time while healing up, has been quietly very strong with the bat this year, but he leaves a little something to be desired on defence in the outfield, especially up the middle.

As far as the lineup goes, they can still fill out the starting nine with a pretty capable group even without Springer. Alejandro Kirk’s emergence as a plus option to pencil in as the designated hitter has really changed the dynamic of the offence, and it can give them a Springer-less look like this:

1- Raimel Tapia (CF)
2- Vladimir Guerrero Jr. (1B)
3- Alejandro Kirk (C)
4- Bo Bichette (SS)
5- Teoscar Hernandez (RF)
6- Lourdes Gurriel Jr. (LF)
7- Matt Chapman (3B)
8- Danny Jansen (C)
9-  Santiago Espinal (2B)

Admittedly, Tapia isn’t the best option for the top of the lineup because of his lower on-base percentage, but he does bring some speed ahead of the big boppers below him. I suspect he’ll get a few opportunities to lead off, and with this group of nine, Santiago Espinal is another candidate that makes some sense. On the days when they’re not starting both Kirk and Jansen, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Cavan Biggio hitting first either.

In a perfect world the Blue Jays would have a healthy George Springer for 162 games, but that’s likely never going to happen. I’m glad he’s tried to gut things out to help the Blue Jays maintain their 2.0 game lead in the Wild Card race, but Saturday looked like enough eye test proof to show us that he might need some time off. I’m no doctor and I’m not going to speculate on what it’ll take before he’s back to 100%, but right now the 32 year old looks pretty compromised out there.

More importantly, the Blue Jays are really going to need him later on when the pressure ramps up down the stretch, and hopefully into a return to the postseason for Canada’s only MLB team. It’ll be a tough decision to sit him down for a while if that’s what the Blue Jays ultimately decide to do, but you really don’t want this kind of thing to linger all year long if it can be avoided with a week or two of rest now.