Per Wilner:
Lukes isn’t having a great season, slashing .250/.286/.327 (a 73 wRC+) in 56 PA before he went down with a hamstring injury. To be fair, though, he was hampered by some strange issues with vertigo in the first three weeks of that time. In 21 PA since seeing a specialist to work out a treatment plan for that issue, he had notched 10 hits including four doubles. Hopefully that means that the Lukes we’ll see is closer to the guy who was a solidly league average hitter in 2025.
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Davis Schneider takes the fall to make room. It’s been a rough start for him, with a .127/.295/.211 line through 89 PA. He’s not barreling the ball up as often as he usually does, accounting for the collapse in his power production, and while he still works an absolute ton of walks it hasn’t been enough to overcome a nearly 35% strikeout rate. He’s shown no signs of breaking out of his slump, either, with May numbers worse than what he posted in March and April. Hopefully some everyday time in Buffalo gets him straightened out. It’s worth remembering that he’s been prone to horrific slumps for his entire career, and has always bounced back eventually to post solid overall production, so there’s every reason to hope he can get right.
I’m not sure I agree with Wilner that Lenyn Sosa would have been the alternative. It’s true that he’s somehow been even worse, with a 29 wRC+ on the season and 25 since he became a Blue Jay, but he’s out of options and this front office is loathe to give a guy up for nothing if they have any belief in him left at all. I can’t say I have any faith in a guy who’s below replacement level through four and a quarter MLB seasons, but the Jays just acquired him and I’m not surprised that 76 horrendous PA aren’t enough for them to give up on whatever they think they see there.
In other minor news, it’s the first roof open night of the year:
And Today In Injuries: Dylan Cease told John Schneider he expects to make his next start before going in for an MRI on the sore leg that knocked him out of yesterday’s game. He also apparently told Vladimir Guerrero jr. that he thought it was just a cramp. I’ll believe it when I see it, and obviously everything is up in the air pending the results of the MRI, but it still seems like they probably avoided a major injury here.
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Regarding Vlad, the same story notes that x-rays on his elbow were negative. He came out of the game because he couldn’t feel his hand, but apparently experienced the same feeling after a similar HBP last year and played the next day. He’s not in tonight’s lineup, but hopefully it won’t be more than a day or two.
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