Travis picks up where he left off

TORONTO • After he went 3 for 4 with a double in Buffalo on Thursday, Devon Travis was batting .219 in the first eight Triple-A games of his career. And he was all smiles.

“Today,” he said, “was finally a good day.”

Friday was even better. The rookie second baseman was back in the Blue Jays’ lineup after missing 36 games with a shoulder injury. And he contributed to the Jays’ 12-2 win over Texas, reaching base twice on a single and a well-placed fielder’s choice grounder that started a rally. He also made a couple of nifty plays on defence.

Under other circumstances, his role might represent a footnote, given that the Jays’ offence ignited one of its familiar fireworks displays in the early going. Edwin Encarnacion’s grand slam homer launched the rout in the first inning. Encarnacion, Russell Martin and Danny Valencia each added solo shots in support of Mark Buehrle’s eighth victory.

But Travis’s first game back had to be heartening for the Blue Jays, and certainly for him. Until the last few games of his rehab stint, he had struggled to find his groove at the plate against Triple-A pitching. After a sizzling April made him the league’s rookie of the month, he had started to slip in May before the injury shut him down.

So, someone asked, which month represented the real Devon Travis?

“I guess we’re going to find out,” he said with a smile. “I don’t know. I never try to get to get too caught up in the numbers. I just try to everything I can to help the team win. Every at-bat I come up and there’s a guy on second base, I’m going to try to hit a ground ball to the right side every time. That doesn’t work out good for your numbers, but when you play the game to help your team win, the numbers will take care of themselves.”

Naturally enough, honing his timing at the plate was his biggest challenge during his rehab games. Early on, following the advice of veterans, he took a lot of strikes as he simply tried to track pitches.

“I was just asking everybody, ‘ Hey, how do I do this? If I’m trying to get back on track, what’s the best way to get my timing back? Do I go up there and do I swing to feel where my timing’s at? Do I take pitches?’

“Luke Scott down there, played in the big leagues a long time, I asked him. I asked [Josh] Thole. Kind of searching. I asked [manager Gary Allenson], ‘ Hey what do I do?’ That was pretty much consensus: you take the first couple pitches in your first at-bats, see pitches, get your timing down.”