The Blue Jays placed Brandon Belt on the 10-day injured list this afternoon. He’s dealing with lumbar spine muscle spasms. Outfielder Nathan Lukes is up from Triple-A Buffalo to take the roster spot.
Toronto didn’t provide a timetable for Belt’s return. There are just under three weeks to go in the regular season and the Jays are on the edge of the playoff race. They go into the second game of this week’s series against the Rangers in possession of the American League’s second Wild Card spot, half a game above Texas and one game better than the Mariners.
Belt has had a strong first season in Toronto. Signed to a $9MM free agent deal, the veteran first baseman is hitting .251/.369/.470 with 16 homers across 382 plate appearances. The Jays have used him a platoon capacity, keeping him to just 31 at-bats versus same-handed pitching. His injury could leave more at-bats for lefty-swinging rookie Spencer Horwitz, who is in the lineup tonight against Max Scherzer.
In other injury news:
- The Cubs plan to place Jeimer Candelario on the 10-day injured list with a back issue, tweets Jesse Rogers of ESPN. Rookie outfielder Alexander Canario will be recalled to take the roster spot. Candelario suffered the injury on Sunday, so the placement will likely be backdated by one day. He’ll first be eligible to return a week from Thursday. Acquired from the Nationals at the deadline, Candelario is hitting .237/.324/.449 in 36 games during his second stint as a Cub. He’d hit well in August before falling into a slump over the past couple weeks.
- The Braves have placed Dylan Lee on the 15-day injured list with shoulder inflammation, the club announced. He had originally been optioned to Triple-A Gwinnett, but that demotion was voided thanks to the injury. Lee will continue to be paid at the MLB rate. Unfortunately, that’ll come at the cost of the rest of his season. Justin Toscano of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution writes that the Braves will shut the southpaw down until 2024. Lee was out from mid-June until the start of September because of shoulder soreness. He returned to make just four appearances before the shoulder sent him back to the IL. His season wraps up with 23 2/3 innings of 4.18 ERA ball. Atlanta has A.J. Minter and Brad Hand as their top left-handed relief duo going into the playoffs.
- Mets reliever Sean Reid-Foley suffered a lat strain, tweets Anthony DiComo of MLB.com. That’ll certainly end his season. New York recalled Reed Garrett to take Reid-Foley’s place on the active roster. It’s a frustrating development for the 28-year-old Reid-Foley, who was limited to eight appearances since the club selected his contract at the end of August. He’d been out since last May working back from a Tommy John procedure. Reid-Foley tossed 7 2/3 innings of three-run ball this year in the majors, striking out 16 while walking six.
But what’s the story with Alek Manoah?
Yes let’s hear about that !!
Sounds like some hilarious sour puss stuff
Big L if true
From what’s being reported.
Manoah just outright refused to report to AAA. Eventually went to Buffalo but hasn’t even picked up a ball.
As a Jays fan, that’s not good news and likely is going to lead to him being traded if he doesn’t do a complete 180 with his attitude
Unfortunately his trade value dropped even more the last 24 hours with this news, and if the Blue Jays brass leaked this story to the media they just weakened their position (not saying they did btw).
I would love to hear Manoah’s explanation. I just want to know what’s going through this guy’s head.
Same. He’s been in the Buffalo Bison dugout for a while, people have spotted him upfront supporting the team. Wonder what isn’t being reported.
Maybe he reported to Buffalo Wild Wings.
Nicely done
Yep. I was just at “Buffalo Wild Wings” an hour ago and I saw Alek Manoah and Alenjandro Kirk getting the daily special on wings. I said “what are you doing here”?, and he turned and walked away.
Where was it reported that he outright refused to go to AAA? Everything I’ve seen says he didn’t report because they were running a series of tests due to physical issues he reported.
Reported all over the radio today and many other unofficial sites
Only waiting for the Jays to confirm it.
Believe it was Ben Nicholson Smith who broke the story
Sounds like the spin masters in damage control might already be on top of it.
clrrogers something is up. The reporters, who work for Rogers, report this story on Manoah who also works for Rogers. Was this story broken because a non-Rogers owned reporter was about to break it? Or are the Jays fed up with Manoah that they want to break him?
Either way, Manoah’s trade value has plummeted even more than it had two months ago. This is bad news for the Blue Jays.
I could see a team like the Dodgers or Braves get him via trade. They seem almost impervious to “cancer” and have a good enough leadership/foundation to put up with him. Dodgers could fix him.
They seem impervious to “cancer” because they don’t get players that are “cancers”
This is probably a Yankees type of move
It sure doesn’t seem Matt Mervis endured himself to Ross, in his time in Chicago. Why when a guy like Candelario who has been used very often at 1B, goes on the IL – do they recall an OFer who Ross only got 1 stinkin AB while he was recently up?
Plus the bench has plenty of RH hitting- and could probably use a LH hitter more.
Something smells.
I do agree the Canario-Morel-Wisdom mix is redundant, and I’d want a lefty bat. That said, Ross has input, as others do, but Hoyer is the guy making the call based on opinions throughout the organization.
Not sure why Ross wasn’t impressed with Mervis’ first 100 PAs with the Cubs? How about not hitting? Plenty big enough sample size, his line was .167/.242/.289. with a 33% K rate. And a fringy fielder. And Maybe since being back in Iowa, Mervis hasn’t fixed the issues that were exposed while he was with the Cubs.
The Cubs have to have 28 guys on the roster. It’s possible for the Cubs that having the 28th guy on the bench isn’t going to change the roster. Except being able to add PCA’s defense in Colorado. I’m just speculating, but it’s possible the Cubs want to work on some things with Canario’s swing. And it’s more about having to have that 28th guy and being able to work with, than it is about Canario contributing.
You suggest a lot of ‘speculation’ spotty. Maybe this, maybe that.
I’ll suggest also, that Mervis wouldn’t be the first nor the last player to have a rough go, in their introduction into MLB.
And your opinion that Mervis is a ‘fringy’ fielder. I’ll say he sure wasn’t more fringy than Wisdom and Mancini and even Hosmer were.
Also I’d suggest that you could be wrong on your belief that Hoyer would have final say on who’s brought up – because it may have been Hawkins.
Ill state a fact. The Cubs have vastly more information on their prospects than you do… so I don’t buy your explanation that they’re just idiots and you know better.
How’s that?
No Lukes!
This makes little sense, Canario just bench warmed for a week, they brought up PCA to hopefully not do the exact same thing, and one of the 1B options goes down and Mervis isn’t brought back up?! I’m sure Ross was involved in the decision to the FO but Ross still says boneheaded things and makes boneheaded moves. Like saying he’s sticking with Happ at batting 3rd essentially no matter what and a few days later he drops him to the 6th spot. I just don’t get it, Wisdom can’t play 1B and forgot how to play 3B. Why are they not calling up Mervis?
Ross is living proof that the Peter Principle is alive and well in MLB. Ross is a ‘coach’ IMO, not a Manager. He is excellent at getting players to focus – on game day. But he is failure in lineup construction and using young players. He is not much of a strategist.
And before I get roasted, I heard the compliments about last night’s game in Colorado – it’s one game.
You can’t spell Candelario without Canario.
About Manoah I suspect the whole story is not out yet. I wouldn’t be surprised if mental illness and/or alcohol are involved. He needs help. He arrived at camp far too overweight. He clearly has a fitness and food problem. Let’s not jump to criticism of him.
Makes me wonder where is the quality high performance and character coaching of all these coaches in the Jays organization. Something got missed.
Manoah ended the season for Taylor Ward as he was getting hot at the plate and tyne Angels had a chance to make the playoffs. Could it be that Manoah was inebriated while he d pitching against the Angels, which explains why he hit Taylor?
Character only becomes an issue when the temperature rises in the room for the Jays. Or if you are Pete Walker.
More and more I am convinced the Jays wanted this news to come out. I think it’s a miscalculation on their part. Best case scenario is Manoah has a good 2024 season but hates the organization, worse case is he is traded for less than Drury and McKinney. Organization needed to protect Manoah, or alert the press immediately after it happened to minimize the damage.