Brittlest Blue Jay?

Jose Reyes is on the DL again, a situation the shortstop is all too familiar with, much to the chagrin of Toronto fans

Jose Reyes is acutely aware that his detractors call him brittle, so he takes pride in his ability to keep playing when he’s hurt. Last year, when his legs bothered him for most of the season, he played in 143 games for the Blue Jays. Just last week, he said he was determined to stay on the field, even though he had a cracked rib and strained muscle on his left side. “I’ll find a way,” he said then. But on Monday night, when he struck out in the seventh inning with a runner on third and one out, Reyes realized that he had become a liability in the Jays’ lineup.

“The way I was playing there, it doesn’t feel right,” he said after the club placed him on the 15-day disabled list. “It doesn’t feel like it’s me. I don’t feel I’m helping the ball club like that.”

The loss of Reyes, the team’s shortstop and leadoff hitter, deepens the malaise that has gripped the Jays in recent days. The loss Monday was their fourth in a row. Their bullpen is in disarray, neither Jose Bautista nor Edwin Encarnacion is producing at the plate and Bautista is limited to DH duty because he has a shoulder strain.

A switch-hitter, Reyes was confined to batting right-handed because his injuries hindered his left-handed swing. Batting against right-handers, he swung at too many bad pitches and many of his swings were awkward and off-balance, as in that seventhinning at-bat against Alexi Ogando when he stranded a runner.

“I knew if I hit from the left side I’m going to put the ball in play somehow, somewhere,” Reyes said. “And we lost the game by one run. I don’t want to be not contributing on the field.”

The Jays called up light-hitting defensive whiz Jonathan Diaz from Buffalo. Manager John Gibbons said Ryan Goins would fill in for Reyes at shortstop against right-handers and Diaz against lefties.

Batting exclusively right-handed over six games, Reyes was three-for-23.

He is on the DL in April for the third time in his three seasons as a Blue Jay. It’s the eighth time since 2009 that he has landed on the DL.

Reyes said he cannot estimate his recovery time, but when asked, he mentioned two or three weeks. He said he may know more after undergoing an MRI when the Jays return home next Monday.

During Monday’s game, he said he and trainer George Poulis discussed his situation, which led to the DL decision.

“I kind of felt a little bit down,” Reyes said. “I had to explain to George, if I have to go to the DL and get this stuff straight and right, I have to do it. I can’t keep playing like that.”

The cracked rib occurred on a checked swing in Baltimore during the team’s fourth game of the season on April 10. After a career marred by periodic leg problems, in part resulting from his aggressive style of play, he finds his current injury particularly frustrating.

“Who can imagine that this [would] happen on a check swing, cracking one of my ribs? I mean, that’s crazy,” he said.

The Blue Jays will give rookie Miguel Castro some breathing space. They will “try” Brett Cecil as their closer. And they will use veteran Aaron Loup and rookie Roberto Osuna in the seventh and eighth innings, based on matchups.

Manager John Gibbons outlined the revised bullpen assignments on the day after Osuna blew a 5-4 lead in the eighth inning and Castro gave up three hits and the winning run to Boston in the ninth.

Castro, 20, will work in the earlier innings after moving impressively into the closer’s role when the season opened. His did not allow a run in his first six outings, but over his past five, he has surrendered four runs and nine hits in just 3⅔ innings. He has four saves, two blown saves and two losses.

“We’ll try Cece as the closer,” Gibbons said in a statement that sounded more like a roll of the dice than a ringing endorsement.

Cecil has a 7.20 ERA in eight games, covering only five innings. Gibbons anointed him as the new closer early in spring training, but Cecil missed two weeks of camp with a sore shoulder and has been used primarily as a situational lefty in the eighth inning.

Castro’s recent troubles served to underscore the fact that he, like Osuna, never pitched above Class A before this season. Castro is a quiet young man who does not speak English. That, for some observers, seems to deepen concerns about how he is dealing with his turn of fortune.

Gibbons appears to share that concern.

“Back him off, build him up and get him back in there,” he said of the decision to remove Castro from high-stakes situations. “Nobody goes through this game without getting hit around a little bit. To think a 20-year-old kid’s not [going to get hit], that just doesn’t happen.”

The perception seems to be that Osuna, who is also 20, is handling the big-league transition better than Castro. In his first seven of nine appearances, Osuna did not allow a run. In each of his past two, he has allowed a single run.

“We can pitch in this situation, and we’re going to make this adjustment,” Osuna said, speaking for himself and his buddy Castro after Monday night’s loss.

The bullpen disarray has prompted some observers to suggest moving Aaron Sanchez, another rookie, back into the closer’s role, which he filled impressively for a brief period at the end of last season.

Asked if that move has been considered, Gibbons replied: “Yeah, we’ve talked about that a lot.”

Where does that discussion stand at the moment?

“I got nothing to tell you,” Gibbons said. After a pause, he added: “We talk about everything.”

Those talks undoubtedly included another big question: If Sanchez were to go back to the bullpen, who would replace him in the rotation?

Entering Tuesday night’s game, the Jays’ 5.04 staff ERA ranked 27th among 30 major-league teams. Their 4.45 bullpen ERA ranked 26th.