Travis rehab tests knee, and patience
Second baseman feels he has rushed back from injuries in past, to his detriment
HOUSTON— If infield practice was a test, Devon Travis passed it handily. The Blue Jays second baseman fielded a series of grounders Friday afternoon, darting to his left, springing to his right and receiving no bad feedback from his temperamental right knee.
Doctors repaired damaged cartilage in the joint in mid-June, the same knee that needed surgery last November. While Travis remains on the team’s 60-day disabled list, he doesn’t have a timetable for his return to the Jays’ lineup. He says that’s intentional.
Injuries have shortened each of Travis’s three major-league seasons, and the 26-year-old suspects setting deadlines has prompted him to rush his rehab and set himself up for more setbacks. So as he returns from this latest setback, Travis says he doesn’t want to know when he will ready to play again. He’d rather feel it.
“The body’s going to do what it wants to do,” Travis said Friday. “It’s not like I had injuries that could be avoided. It’s my cartilage . . . I’m just hoping it’s behind me rather than it becoming something chronic. I’m hoping we can figure out a way to avoid it. It’s hard to pinpoint, though. It’s always little things.”
Through 213 career games Travis has hit .292 and slugged .438. He was batting .259 when his latest knee injury occurred, but that number suffered from his slow start. After batting .130 in April, Travis hit .364 and slugged .646 in May.
When the Jays traded for him in 2014, Travis’s size and style of play drew comparisons to Houston’s Jose Altuve, the five-foot-six second baseman currently leading the majors in batting and on-base percentage.
Altuve didn’t start Friday’s game, resting at the urging of manager A.J. Hinch.
While Altuve has remained healthy enough to average 158 games in his previous three seasons, Hinch says days off keep him productive. The Astros manager acknowledges that acute injuries often strike without warning, but says managing workloads properly can help avoid the ailments that alter seasons and careers.
“We’re trying to get the optimal productivity out of these guys, and that comes with some rest,” Hinch said. “Some of that stuff you can’t control. But soft-tissue stuff, you can. Running these guys into empty, you can.”
In contrast to Altuve, Travis has never played more than 101 games in a major-league season.
Recurring shoulder strains limited him to 62 games in 2015, and culminated in off-season surgery to fix a congenital defect. The next season started with recovery from the shoulder operation and ended with knee problems that have followed him into 2017.
This time the team hopes a less rigid approach to returning to play will yield a better long-term result.
“He looks good,” Jays manager John Gibbons said. “They’ll have him running here pretty soon.”
Even if Travis is ready to run next week he won’t allow himself to rush, even if he’s tempted.
After surgery in June, Travis resumed light work in the field last month, gradually increasing intensity until Friday’s session. He expects to wake up Saturday with a pain-free right knee, but says he still won’t force himself back into the lineup.
“As athletes, if you give us a timeline, we’re competing against the timeline (and) not doing what’s best for us,” Travis said. “You’ve got to listen to your body. That’s the biggest thing I’ve learned . . . This team needs me to help them and when I’m not healthy I can’t do that.”
á The Jays optioned relief pitcher Joe Biagini to Triple-A Buffalo, where he’s slated to start Monday. Gibbons says Biagini will likely return to Toronto as a starting pitcher later this season … The club activated reliever Danny Barnes while placing catcher Miguel Montero on the 10day disabled list with a groin injury. The Jays promoted catcher Rafael Lopez from Buffalo.