The Blue Jays’ Joey Votto experiment comes to an end as he announces his retirement 

Earlier this year, the Toronto Blue Jays did the unthinkable in bringing home Canadian baseball legend Joey Votto by signing him to a minor league contract. At the time, the Jays were hoping that the 17-year veteran could work his way back into form and eventually help provide the team with some much-needed leadership and boost to their offense during the course of the season.

However, after several months of speed bumps later, the Votto experiment has now officially come to an end. On Wednesday, the former NL MVP took it to social media to announce his surprising retirement from baseball. In doing so, it also ends the feel-good story of Votto returning home to play at least one more time for his home country before calling it a career.

But it certainly didn’t come without trying, as Votto unfortunately encountered many obstacles, namely the injury bug, along the way. After starting off with a bang by hitting a home run in his first at-bat as a Blue Jay during spring training, he would have the worst of luck by injuring his right ankle by stepping on a bat in the dugout. What seemed like just a harmless roll of the ankle ended up sidelining the six-time All-Star for almost three months.

When he finally returned to action, Votto initially made some good progression through the lower levels of the Jays’ minor league system. But just when he was about to make his debut with the Jays’ Triple-A affiliate Buffalo Bisons, he would retweak the same ankle, putting him out of action once again for another three weeks.

When all was said and done, injuries and all, Votto actually struggled for the most part during his time building up in the minors. He posted a dismal .165 batting average, .569 OPS, with just 12 runs scored, 3 doubles, 2 home runs, 12 RBI, 16 walks and 36 strikeouts in 31 games of action. Added to the fact that the Jays were no longer playing for anything this season, those factors altogether may have led to his eventual tough decision to finally hang it up.

As much as it may be a disappointment to many that we didn’t get to see Votto fulfill his destiny by suiting up in a Jays’ uniform, he will still go down as one of the best Canadian baseball players to have ever played the game and will be sorely missed.