Injury comes at ‘frustrating’ time for Estrada
MRI reveals pitcher is suffering from glute strain
As John Gibbons pulled Marco Estrada from Tuesday night’s game against the New York Mets after just one-third of an inning, the skipper put him arm on the right-hander’s shoulder and seemingly guided him off the mound. The 34-year-old veteran hadn’t called Gibbons and head trainer Nikki Huffman to the bump.
Estrada had hoped he wasn’t showing the pain he felt from what he believed to be a left hip injury, something he began feeling during a June 22 outing against the Los Angeles Angels.
“I didn’t ask them to come out,” Estrada said on Wednesday, speaking for the first time since his premature exit.
“I even asked to stay in. I asked to try and finish the inning but Gibby knew and it was the right call. It was definitely the right call. I probably shouldn’t have been out there but I was hoping that if I threw a few more pitches I’d loosen up a little bit more but it just never did, never got to that point. It was enough; definitely the right call.
“I’m glad he did because who knows, someone else might have left me in there and I might have made it worse.” An MRI later on Tuesday night revealed Estrada was in fact suffering from a mild left glute strain.
While Estrada hasn’t spent time on the disabled list since 2016, he’s familiar with pitching through pain; he deals with the lower back issues that sidelined him two years ago to this day, but doesn’t let it keep him off the field.
But the current issue, on his planting leg, was too much to handle on Tuesday. If it was on his right side, something Estrada has dealt with before, the pitcher doesn’t believe he would be missing any time or even talking about it publicly.
“Unfortunately it’s on the left side, it’s the side I stretch, my left arm goes up pretty high, it stretches that area out and then just landing on it, it bothers it,” Estrada said. “It’s just a bad area. I don’t think the injury’s that significant, it’s more of the placement of where it is be- cause that area does get stretched over and over and over.”
Estrada’s early exit meant the Jays cycled through seven relievers on Tuesday night. Ahead of Wednesday’s game No. 2 of two against the Mets, Toronto designated Preston Guilmet for assignment and optioned Tim Mayza to Buffalo, adding right handers Luis Santos and Rhiner Cruz to the active roster as reinforcements in the ‘pen.
The timing of the injury is particularly frustrating for Estrada.
After putting up a 5.68 ERA through his first 11 starts, he had that number down to 2.35 in the five outings leading up to the game against the New York.
“Mechanically I’ve been feeling really good and I feel like my timing’s on point right now, I have been making better pitches, a little more quality pitches ... It’s frustrating. I’ve been in a good place, been pitching well and the team’s been playing well so I want to be there for all of this,” he said.
While Estrada wasn’t certain of the rehab process going for- ward, he knows he needs time to heal. He hopes the two off days the Jays have coming up, on Thursday after the Mets series and next Monday, will give his body the time it needs to recuperate. Gibbons said the off-days could conceivably allow Toronto to cycle through the rotation without needing a fifth starter until late next week. The manager also said a disabled-list stint could be in the cards for Estrada, but the team had yet to decide how it would proceed as of Wednesday afternoon.