Bautista needs surgery, done for 2012

Moments after learning one of their first round picks from this June’s MLB draft had tested positive for a performance-enhancing drug, the Toronto Blue Jays announced that slugger Jose Bautista requires surgery on his injured wrist and will be lost for the remainder of the season.

Bautista underwent a pair of MRIs Monday in Cleveland to determine why he suffered a reoccurence of a wrirst injury that had sidelined him recently for five weeks.

Earlier Tuesday, MLB announced that Blue Jays pitching prospect Marcus Stroman, who Toronto selected 22nd overall, had tested positive for the banned substance Methylhexaneamine while playing for the Vancouver Canadians.

Stroman will immediately begin serving a 50-game suspension.

Jose Bautista talked to reporters Tuesday in New York. Here’s some of what he said, via Shi Davidi:

“We followed the course of action that was recommended at each time during the recovery after the original injury. The only way I could have played again this year without having surgery was to do what we did. I tried, there’s just too much instability in that tendon. It got to the point where risking injuring to the tendon was not worth it. That’s why we’re opting to do it now, that way I have plenty of time to be ready for spring training and the season.

“He attempted a longer resting period and immobilization and that didn’t really work out for him. I’m going to bypass that and go straight for the surgery because there’s no need to chance it and have the same thing that happened to him, went the whole off-season resting and rehabbing it, and the first game of the year het hurt it again. I’m not going to go through that, I’ll be ready with plenty of time to go before spring training starts. It’s the right time.

“We always used pain as an indicator of how far I should push it. What I have now is the same injury I had and the same damage to the anatomy of the area from the original injury, nothing got worse. Using pain as an indication is how far I knew to push it. It got to the point I felt so much instability in the tendon that I knew if I kept playing, or had to do something extraordinary, it was not going to be good for my tendon, I’d probably jeopardize it at that point. There’s no need to do that.

“That’s the way this happens for everybody with this type of injury, it’s from one particular play, not necessarily over time or having injured it a bunch of times.

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