DUNEDIN, Fla. — Toronto Blue Jays catcher Danny Jansen is expected to be out for a “couple weeks” after suffering a fractured pisiform in his right wrist, manager John Schneider announced on Friday.
Jansen was struck by a 93.4 m.p.h. fastball from right-hander Carmen Mlodzinski in the seventh inning of Wednesday’s win over the Pittsburgh Pirates. He is set to visit with a doctor on Friday to determine the initial timeline for his return.
Schneider acknowledged the injury likely means Jansen will not be ready for Opening Day.
“Right now, it seems, unlikely,” Schneider said. “But you don’t want to put a definite on it. It’ll depend on how he’s feeling kind of day to day once swelling gets out of there and stuff. And, what the doctor says today.
“He’ll have to catch and ramp back up and hit and all that kind of stuff,” the manager added. “With him, obviously a big part of our team, the sooner the better, but we’re not going to rush it.”
With Jansen out, catcher Alejandro Kirk will assume the bulk of catching duties behind the plate. Schneider said catchers Brian Serven, Payton Henry and Max McDowell will get more playing time as the club looks to backfill the position as the season approaches. None of those three players are on the 40-man roster.
The manager added the club won’t consider Daulton Varsho as a catching option. The outfielder got into 82 games behind the plate during his three seasons with the Arizona Diamondbacks, but has not done so since arriving in Toronto.
“We know he can do that, but [we’re] comfortable with him in the outfield and he has enough on his plate,” said Schneider. “So, an opportunity for Brian and for Peyton to kind of step up and see what they got.”
Kirk caught 99 games for the Blue Jays last season, sharing catching duties with Jansen, while spending another 17 games as a designated hitter. The Blue Jays will now need to alter their game planning for at least the early weeks of the campaign.
“We’re very lucky to have both of those guys kind of 1 A) and 1 B),” said the manager. “[We’ll] build [Kirk] up regularly. I think the only difference is you start looking at the regular season schedule a little bit — who we’re playing, obviously, but who’s going to be on the mound, what time the games are, where [are] the off days — to try to get him ready to go. But nothing really different now in camp.”
Jansen’s injury is the latest in what’s been years of bad luck for the catcher. Last September he suffered a right middle-finger fracture in September that ended his season prematurely and caused him to miss the American League Wild Card series. He missed time in 2022 with a left oblique strain and fractured the fifth metacarpal in his left hand. In previous seasons he’s also dealt with hamstring and knee issues as well as broken bones in his left hand. During his senior year of high school in 2013, Jansen also broke the pisiform, a pea-shaped bone where the hand meets the wrist, in his left hand.
“He’s all right,” Schneider responded when asked how Jansen, who hit a career-high 17 homers last season, is taking the latest injury. “He’s getting good at dealing with it, for sure. Some of it is luck, some of it is where he is in the box and how his swing operates, that he’s aware of. So, hopefully we get him back quick and get some padding on that hand, not just the left one but on the right one.”