Rested Travis ready to shoulder the load
BOSTON Two days off was all Devon Travis needed.
After returning to the Toronto Blue Jays lineup for Thursday’s wild-card tying loss to the Baltimore Orioles, the second baseman believes he’s over the left shoulder scare he dealt with in the aftermath of Monday’s melee with the New York Yankees.
While Travis was hitless in three plate appearances, reaching once via base on balls, the important part was that he woke up Friday morning in Boston feeling good and was back in the lineup in the series opener against the Red Sox.
“Shoulder feels great,” Travis said. “It was a great two days (off ), I think — a smart two days.
“I was a little scared just because it was a bad process before, but, no, it’s good. I feel good and the trainers have been great and they’ve got me feeling ready to go. Now, I’m just looking to do all I can to help the team win.”
Leading the Jays up-and-down offence with a .319 average since the all-star break, Travis has lost his leadoff spot to the plucky Ezequiel Carrera over the past two games, but his No. 9 spot in the order is expected to be a temporary change.
Travis, after dealing with the aforementioned shoulder problem at this time last year and being forced to sit out his team’s playoff run, is just happy to be able to contribute this time around.
“This is what it’s about right here,” Travis said. “This is what spring training and all the games prior to this are about, playing meaningful baseball in September.” LIRIANO THE MAN
If the Blue Jays are forced into a tiebreak game on Monday, it’s very likely that Francisco Liriano would get the call as Toronto’s starter.
“We’ll just stay with our regular five-day rotation,” said manager John Gibbons. “That would mean it would be Liriano.”
The addition of Liriano at the trade deadline has given the pitching staff a huge boost. First it allowed the team to go to a six-man rotation and keep Aaron Sanchez fresh. Second, it gives the Jays a strong swingman arm who could be valuable out of the bullpen in the playoffs.
“Somebody is going to have to go down there (to the pen) and we’ll be looking for a guy to pitch some big innings, especially with (Joaquin) Benoit going down,” said Gibbons.
Obviously, Liriano is the best choice for that assignment. REST IS ESSENTIAL
If there was a silver lining in the cloud of Thursday’s 4-0 loss to the Orioles, it was that the major players in Toronto’s bullpen got a much-needed day of rest. Gibbons went into Friday’s game hoping to be able to squeeze out more rest for his main relievers.
“Experimenting is over,” said the manager. “There’s no time for that. Benoit is a big loss but if anything came out of (Thursday) is that we were able to rest some guys.”
Benoit tore a calf muscle in Monday’s ill-conceived bench-clearing melee and his loss seriously impacts how Gibbons deploys his remaining relievers.
“I’ll look at how the lineups stack up and try to pick the prime spot to use (Brett) Cecil with a couple of lefties and work around the righties. He’s our main left-hander.
“We’ve been roughed up over the last week or 10 days and what glares at you is Benoit’s loss because he had been that go-to guy. When he was in the game, it was almost an automatic shutdown inning. It could be the seventh inning one night or, if (Jason) Grilli wasn’t, maybe it was the eighth. So that naturally causes a little bit of disturbance.”