Travis hopes year is in the making
Infielder would love to get through one full big-league season
Every day that the Blue Jays are at home, early arrivals to the Rogers Centre can see second baseman Devon Travis out on the field mid-afternoon, taking groundballs, taking batting practice, testing his wounded knee — in, out, stops, starts — in an attempt to get back on the diamond as soon as possible.
The 26-year-old future star has been on the disabled list since June 6 with yet another injury that has frustrated him and stunted his career.
Nobody wants the tag of “injury-prone” but Travis has yet to play a full season in the majors. He will have three full seasons of majorleague service at the end of the year and will be eligible for salary arbitration but, if he does not get back on the field again this year, he will have spent 269 days on the disabled list with a wounded collarbone, shoulder troubles and two knee injuries. By MLB reckoning, a total of 172 days of service constitutes a full year.
Travis has a rehab role model in terms of what can be done when people doubt your ability to overcome. It’s Marcus Stroman, who tore the ACL in his left knee two years ago in spring training, then defied club prognostications of missing the entire year by coming back that September and helping Jays reach the ALCS.
“Those stories really inspire me, especially someone that I get to call a friend and a teammate, knowing everything he went through,” Travis said.
“His rehab process was gruelling. It takes a beating on your body. The mental grind we always talk about. I know Stro talks about it in his rehab. It’s the most important part and you have to continue to push and stay strong.
“Seeing someone coming back from an ACL surgery in four months, to come back and go (4-0) in the regular season and win in the post-season — if that doesn’t inspire an athlete or light a fire under your butt, or make you look up to guys even though he’s a couple of months younger than me, then I truly don’t love and appreciate everything that goes into this game.”
Maybe if this was 2015, or last season, Travis would have offered a projection on when he might be back on the field, either rehabbing in the minors or playing second base for the Jays.
But Travis is older, wiser and more beat up, perhaps because he tried to push previous injuries too fast, too furious.
“I’m looking to get back on the field as quick as I can, whether it would be tomorrow or the next day, the next week or Sept. 1,” Travis began. “Whatever the date is, I’m looking to get back on the field and stay back on the field.
“Something that I really have to ingrain in my head is that coming back too soon, man, can put you in situations that maybe set you back again.
“I don’t want to get hurt again. I understand it’s part of the game, but when I’m ready, when I’m confident and I get the clear to go, I’ll be gone. I’ll be back on the field doing all I can to help this team win, but we’ve got to make sure it’s right, for sure.”
There is so much potential in Travis to be one of the elite second basemen in the game.
He is forever working on his defence, but with a bat in his hands you just have to look at his first month as a rookie in 2015 and his last active month this year before going on the DL. In those 49 games, Travis had 64 hits in 181 at-bats (a .354 average) with 22 doubles, 10 homers, 39 RBIs and an OPS over 1.000.
“I want to get healthy and I want to be here for the team moreso even than to show everybody that I can play a healthy season, or show myself,” Travis said. “I want to help this team. I understand my role on this team and I have to be out there for them.
“I take it real seriously and I try to do all I can to stay out there, but I’ll definitely look forward to the time when I can put a whole year togeth- er and be here for the team every single day.”
In the meantime, as difficult as it is to push himself every day, at times when his body tells him to forget about it for a day, he is grateful for the opportunity the Jays gave him to be with his teammates rather than back at camp in Florida.
“I can’t even explain it,” Travis said. “To miss the last two years and having to sit down in Florida, watch the team from afar, a group of guys that you care about, you come to war with them every single day and they’re almost like your family — it’s almost like you become alienated.
“You become a fan a little bit. You’re watching it on TV and you don’t quite … you lose the mind a little bit with the fact that you’re on that team. You play on that same team as they do.”
Some of his teammates while he is rehabbing are lesser known.
“Derek Shelton (the Jays’ quality control coach), every single day, has to get here early for me. (Third-base coach) Luis Rivera gets here early for me every single day. (Bullpen catchers) Josue Peley, (Jason Phillips), (strength and conditioning assistant Scott Weberg), they all get here early for me.
“I’m real thankful for everybody. I have to get back out there for everybody. That’s my motivation for sure.”
The likelihood is Travis, barring unforeseen setbacks, or unexpected progress, will attempt a few minorleague games at the start of September and then, perhaps, be activated when rosters expand to 40.
If that happens, Travis said the first time he starts at second, the smile will be impossible to remove.