Springer close: 'Not coming back to be a DH'

BOSTON -- George Springer will begin his rehab assignment with the Triple-A Buffalo Bisons on Tuesday night in Rochester, a major step in the star’s return to a lineup that is already one of baseball’s best.

Springer opened the season on the injured list with a right quad strain, and after returning for just four games in late April, he landed back on the IL with the same injury. The 31-year-old outfielder has been running the bases and ramping up his baseball activities over the past 10 days, but this is the news the Blue Jays have been waiting on all along.

The Blue Jays have a plan for how this will start, but from there, they’ll evaluate Springer on a daily basis. He’s scheduled to play five innings in the field on Tuesday, slowly ramping up in the games that follow, but the Blue Jays will be understandably cautious, given how his last return played out.

“I don’t want to speculate on how many games; it’s all about him feeling right and healthy to come back to the big leagues,” said manager Charlie Montoyo. “It could take one game, it could take five, it could take 10. We’ll communicate with him every day to see how he feels.”

When Springer last returned on April 28, he came back as a DH and saw no time in the field. Springer even had to leave midway through one game due to fatigue in his right quad, which the Blue Jays want to avoid. Montoyo is confident that this time will be different.

“Now that he’s going on a rehab assignment, he feels 100 percent," Montoyo said. "Now, when he comes back, he should be able to play in the outfield. He’s not coming back to be a DH. Of course he might play center field one day and DH the next, like we do with everybody else, but when he comes back, it will be because he’s ready to play the outfield.”

Springer’s return will have a widespread impact on this lineup, particularly when it comes to the Blue Jays’ outfielders.

The DH position will be part of the solution, of course, but this will put the Blue Jays back in the situation we expected to see opening the season. Back then, Randal Grichuk seemed like the odd man out and has said that he didn’t expect to play much in 2021. Instead, he’s run with his opportunity, hitting .273 with 13 home runs and a .795 OPS while playing in all 63 games. Teoscar Hernández has been hot, too, so it may be Lourdes Gurriel Jr. who feels more of a squeeze now.

Then comes the question of where Springer hits. He was projected as the Blue Jays’ leadoff hitter coming into the year, given the success he’s had while spending the majority of his career in that exact spot, but Marcus Semien has been playing the best baseball of his career atop Toronto’s lineup.

“I’m going to talk with both of them,” Montoyo said. “Semien has been one of the best players in baseball leading off. We’ll see how Springer comes back. Maybe you don’t want to rush him and hit him first. Maybe you hit him fourth or fifth, or something like that. We’ll see how everything goes, but that will be a good problem to have.”

There’s certainly an argument to be made that any combination of Semien and Springer in the 1-2 spots would work in front of Vladimir Guerrero Jr. Stacking the bases in front of baseball’s best hitter can only help, but regardless of how this shakes out, the Blue Jays are finally approaching the lineup they envisioned when they inked Springer to a six-year deal for a club-record $150 million in January.