Espinal returns from wrist contusion, helps Blue Jays secure first sweep of the season

TORONTO – The damage could very easily have been much worse for Santiago Espinal when a 98.1 mph fastball from Gerrit Cole struck him on the right wrist last weekend.

The agony was immediate for the Toronto Blue Jays infielder, “a pain that you can’t even freaking describe,” he said, as was his belief that the pisiform, a knobby bone where hand meets wrist, was broken. “I couldn’t move anything. I felt like my season was over.” Then an X-Ray came back negative, a follow-up CT Scan confirmed there was no break, he did fielding work Monday, took batting practice and hit off the velocity machine Tuesday and returned to the lineup Wednesday with three hits, an RBI and two runs scored in an 8-0 win that completed a three-game sweep of the Chicago White Sox.

“Good to have him back,” manager John Schneider said beforehand. “Dodged a bullet there, for sure.”

The Blue Jays may very well have dodged another during their fourth straight victory, and fifth in six outings before a day-time crowd of 35,069, when George Springer left the game after taking a Michael Kopech fastball off the right hand in the third inning. X-Rays were negative, the club said in announcing he had a contusion, the hit by pitch becoming another uncomfortably close call rather than a troubling injury.

In that way, the Blue Jays kept rolling along, improving to 16-9 ahead of a weekend visit by old friend Teoscar Hernandez and the Seattle Mariners, buoyed by the collective strength of their starting rotation along with a lineup showing both its depth and diversity.

They outscored the spiralling White Sox, who have lost seven straight and 12 of 14, by a cumulative score of 20-2 in their first sweep of the year.

“We're playing well,” said Bo Bichette, who had a homer among his three hits, drove in three runs and scored twice. “This series in particular, everything was clicking, offence, defence, pitching. When everything is going like that good things are going to happen. We’ve got to keep on competing every day and getting after it.”

Yusei Kikuchi extended his resurgence with a fourth strong outing in five starts, allowing four hits and a walk while striking out eight in 5.2 innings.

Only once did he allow more than one baserunner, working around an Andrew Benintendi leadoff single and one-out Seby Zavala walk to get Lenyn Sosa on a flyout to right and strike out Romy Gonzalez.

With Kikcuhi and Jose Berrios on track, the Blue Jays rotation looks like the bulwark it was expected to be, allowing only five runs on 26 hits and 10 walks in 52.1 innings over the last eight games, striking out 48.

“All five of us have really bonded,” Kikuchi said through interpreter Yusuke Oshima. “We've been eating together, in bullpens we’ve been giving each other advice. It's really good to see each and every one of us succeeding so far.”

The Blue Jays offence, meanwhile, continues to look like a deeper and more diverse unit than the homer-dependent group of recent vintage, using a mix of contact, speed, patience and power to press opponents.

Espinal became the latest member to play catalyst, starting a rally in the third with a two-out single and after Springer was hit on the hand, scoring when Bichette delivered an RBI single ahead of Vladimir Guerrero Jr.’s two-run double. Springer remained on base there and played the field in the top of the fourth before leaving when his turn came up again in the bottom half, after Espinal’s RBI single opened a 4-0 edge.

“(Springer) just wanted to wait and see and talking to him, he can throw, we wanted to see if it was going to bother him hitting,” said Schneider. “With the off-day (on Thursday), it made it pretty easy to be cautious with it.”

Bichette added his fifth homer of the season, a one-out solo shot in the seventh ahead of Whit Merrifield’s eventual two-run single, while the star shortstop cashed in Espinal again in the eighth with another RBI single.

Espinal came into the game batting just .114 this season with four hits in 35 at-bats and nearly matched that total in one afternoon.

“Try to be aggressive – I feel like I haven't been aggressive enough – jumping on first pitches, especially jumping on the fastball and all that stuff, but basically being more aggressive,” Espinal said of his approach. “I was trying to see more pitches, go to right field and all that stuff. … The difference that I saw today, it’s like I can’t be too selective thinking I’ve got to go to right field, I’ve got to take it the other way. If the pitch is outside, I’m going to take it the other way. If it’s in the middle, in my zone, I’m going to pull the ball or hit it to centre field.”

Espinal, Merrifield and Cavan Biggio, who took over in right field for Springer, have been sharing duties at second base, with the latter two also seeing occasional action in the outfield. It’s been an adjustment for all three, with both Espinal and Biggio showing signs during the White Sox series of emerging from slow starts that can be tied to the challenges of intermittent playing time.

"They've done a really good job with it," said Schneider. "It's tough, because they've been everyday players, Espy's been an all-star. Messaging has to be consistent from myself, staff starting in spring training, and the good part is I think they're all at the point where they just want to win and they know what they can bring to the table each night. Sometimes the runway is a little longer, sometimes it's a little shorter. The more upfront you can be with those guys, the better. They've been really good so far."

Merrifield especially, as he’s reached in all 19 of his games thus far, with a hit in 16 of them, helping them power a bottom half that can both set the table for the top of the order and do some damage of on its own, too.

“If we get on base,” said Espinal, “I feel like the team starts running.”

With his wrist, treated, taped and sound, he’s eager to play his part.