George Springer, a driving force atop the Toronto Blue Jays offence, appears to have avoided serious injury after exiting Game 5 of the American League Championship Series with a right knee contusion he sustained in a gruesome hit-by-pitch.<\/p>\n
Blue Jays manager John Schneider said after Friday\u2019s 6-2 loss to the Seattle Mariners that X-rays on Springer were negative, adding that he would be surprised if the leadoff man does not play in Game 6 in Toronto, where the Blue Jays will attempt to stave off elimination.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019ll probably do some more testing tonight when we get home,\u201d Schneider told reporters in Seattle. \u201cGeorge is about as tough as they come. I think he\u2019ll have to really, really be hurting to not be in the lineup on Sunday.\u201d<\/p>\n
With the Blue Jays leading 2-1 in the seventh inning, Mariners right-hander Bryan Woo flung a 1-1 sinker that rode in on Springer and caught the designated hitter flush in his kneecap. Springer, a four-time All-Star in the midst of a career resurgence, immediately went to the ground and stayed there as Schneider and a team athletic trainer hurried to his side.<\/p>\n
Springer, 36, eventually was helped to his feet. He limped toward first base and briefly attempted a warm-up jog, after which the Blue Jays opted to remove him from the game. Joey Loperfido pinch-ran for Springer and stayed in as the designated hitter.<\/p>\n
Now in his 12th big-league campaign, Springer hit a career-high .309 in the regular season with 32 home runs, his most since he received down-ballot MVP votes with the Houston Astros in 2019. His success has carried into this postseason, with Springer supplying three home runs and six RBIs through nine games.<\/p>\n
Springer, who has been consistently booed by Mariners fans throughout the ALCS, just missed hitting a fourth home run in the fifth inning on Friday. He settled for a tying, RBI double as much of the T-Mobile Park crowd continued to boo.<\/p>\n
Two innings later, some in attendance booed him as he limped off the field and into the visiting clubhouse.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know this is an awesome atmosphere to play in, and it\u2019s really, really cool to play here,\u201d Schneider said. \u201cAnd I think the fans that were booing him should take a look in the mirror and understand what kind of player he is and \u2014 I\u2019ll stop there, because when a guy gets hit in the knee and is in obvious pain and you have 40,000 people cheering, not the right thing to do.\u201d<\/p>\n
According to the FS1 telecast, the impact of the baseball off Springer\u2019s knee was hard enough that it registered on Statcast as a 55 mph batted ball.<\/p>\n
This summer, Springer missed 16 games after he was struck in the helmet by a 96 mph pitch during a game in Baltimore.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"George Springer, a driving force atop the Toronto Blue Jays offence, appears to have avoided serious injury after…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":312121,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[1266,1288,62,1290,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-312831","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-mlb","9":"tag-seattle-mariners","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-toronto-blue-jays","12":"tag-united-states","13":"tag-unitedstates","14":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115393981554952463","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312831","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=312831"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312831\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/312121"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=312831"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=312831"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=312831"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}