This story was excerpted from Keegan Matheson's Blue Jays Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.

These past six weeks have been a new challenge for Whit Merrifield.

Over parts of seven seasons with the Royals, Merrifield was the quintessential everyday player. From 2019 to ’21, he’d played every game for three consecutive seasons, bouncing around the diamond and chasing the league lead in hits most years. Things have changed.

Since coming to the Blue Jays in a surprise deal at the Trade Deadline, Merrifield has struggled. Entering Thursday’s finale against the Rays, Merrifield was hitting just .203 with a .518 OPS over 28 games, but his success remains necessary to the Blue Jays’ postseason hopes. On Tuesday, with a late, go-ahead double, Merrifield reminded people what that can look like.

“I mean, any time you see a ball kind of go in the hole, especially in a big moment, it could jump-start you,” Merrifield said. “But what's happened has happened and I'm not concerned with what I've done, I'm just worried about where I am now and what I'm doing moving forward. My swing’s feeling pretty good. So I'm hoping to come up with some more big moments and contribute.

The injury to Lourdes Gurriel Jr. has kept Merrifield in the lineup regularly, whether that be in a starting role or as the first man up off the bench. He’s now a player who’s being wedged in here and there, though, which is a far cry from his days as one of the faces of the Royals.

“It’s new. It’s new for me. It’s a new task. It's a tough task,” Merrifield said. “But yeah, just trying to continue to stay loose and kind of tweak my routine, because it's not something I've ever done before.”

In a perfect world, Merrifield is a super-utility player hitting .290 across a handful of positions for the Blue Jays. That’s why this trade -- albeit a surprise -- seemed to be a natural fit for Toronto. In that first series following the Deadline, when Merrifield raced home to score the winning run in Minneapolis, it looked like it all made sense.

Now, Merrifield has to take a relief pitcher’s mindset at times.

When he’s not in the lineup, Merrifield still knows that he’ll be the first off the bench most nights, so he tries to look two or three innings ahead. He’s able to run down the tunnel from the dugout and take some swings into a net or in the Blue Jays’ cages. He can also loosen up ahead of time for pinch-running spots, which could be a major role for him come October.

Again, it’s new, but the 33-year-old is doing his best to embrace it.

“I’ve always played every day from the time I was little until I got here, and this is the role that I have right now,” Merrifield said. “I really haven't earned much more of a role than my role has been, but you know, I'm learning how to kind of work throughout the course of the game, not to overdo it, but when to sort of ramp it up. It's just sort of get a feel for it. I guess the more you do it, you kind of get a feel for when you might be needed.”

This will be a factor entering 2023, too.

Merrifield is under team control next season at a salary of $6.75 million. At most, there will be a utility role in store for Merrifield, but if he’s part of the day-to-day roster when next season opens, he’ll likely be in a similar role to this.

When Merrifield taps into his speed, makes contact at the plate and plays multiple positions, there’s some real value to that role. It’s what the Blue Jays will be hoping to see more of as they make a Wild Card run.