Grey's Anatomy / Brad Pitt / Britney Spears / Colin Farrell
ST. PETERSBURG – Jose Bautista wasn't in the Blue Jays' starting lineup on Sunday afternoon, marking the fifth-straight game he's missed with a strained right shoulder.
"It's hard to predict exactly when I'm going to be back playing, but I feel much better, could be tomorrow, could be the day after, we'll just have to take it day-by-day, I guess, just like the initial report was," said Bautista. "But I feel night and day from when the injury originally occurred."
Just like Daniel Norris did for his "dead arm," Bautista is undergoing acupuncture treatment for the injury. It's helping.
"It's more weakness right now; when you strain a muscle like that it kind of shuts off to allow healing," said Bautista. "It's not strong right now, but the strength comes back quick as long as you can get most of the pain out. Once the pain becomes soreness I can deal with that so I think I'm getting close to that point."
Bautista had been dealing with a tender shoulder for about a week when adrenaline got the better of him on Tuesday night. He was a half-inning removed from getting thrown behind and then hitting a home run when, in the eighth, Delmon Young singled his way. Bautista charged the ball and unleashed a pea to first base. Young was safe, it was a blowout win for Toronto, and by the time the game was over he was in significant pain.
Bautista was seen entering manager John Gibbons' office about an hour after the game; presumably that's when Bautista informed Gibbons he'd exacerbated the injury.
The plan, still, is for Bautista to return as the designated hitter before he's back in the outfield. There'd been daily speculation as to Bautista's availability to pinch hit but as of Sunday morning, less than three hours before first pitch, he said he hadn't tried to swing a bat.
"As long as I'm good to throw I'll be back playing and I'll be normal," said Bautista. "It'll take me longer to get back on defence than back in the lineup."
Tropicana Field
The Blue Jays led 2-1 entering the bottom of the eighth on Saturday night. Three relievers combined to cough up three runs on four hits and the night, in effect, was over. Toronto lost 4-2.
That the inning began with two strikeouts and the Rays did all the damage with a two out rally was yet another example of the strange things that happen to the Jays at Tropicana Field.
"Whatever quirky things or weird things that happened in the past, we need to leave them exactly there, in the past," said Bautista. "It doesn't really matter where you're playing or who you're playing against, you just have to figure out how to win every game on a different day. It's part of the process. We'll have places where all those quirky things go in our favour. We just have to figure out how to flip the misfortunes we've had here and turn them into victories.
"If we focus on all those weird things that happened we're never going to get past them. The best thing is to look past them, forget them, don't pay attention to them and focus on what truly let's you win games, which is executing, focusing and concentrating pitch-to-pitch on defence and offence."
Castro's Struggles
It's been a rough week for 20-year-old Miguel Castro, who's blown two saves and given up plenty of hard contact.
"Just got to be there as his support," said Bautista. "He's got a long career ahead of him. It's not the first or the last time he's going to give up a hit or a home run. We're not too concerned about that. He's going to figure out how to get some of those people out and come back from not throwing strikes early in some counts and getting behind in counts with some hitters that can do some damage.
"He's going to figure out how to throw off-speed pitches for strikes to get back in to even counts where he can dominate with his overpowering stuff. It's not going to take him long to figure that out. He's got so much good, raw stuff on the mound that it will allow him to do that once he figures out how to utilize his off-speed pitches behind in the count for strikes."
The youngster is in the midst of more than one huge leap, not just from Single-A to the big leagues but also from life in his native Dominican Republic to Canada and the United States.
Castro's in the early stages of learning English.
"I think, culturally, he's made a great adjustment," said Bautista. "He's comfortable in this country. He understands the culture. He loves some of the music in English and some of that stuff. The language barrier for him, it is a tougher one. I think the team has got him a teacher and he's doing English lessons a few times a week in Toronto so that's great and I applaud the team for doing that.
"It will take him some time to get comfortable. He's only 20 years old. I have no idea what level of education he has even in Spanish, let alone figuring out how to speak English and then feeling comfortable enough to do interviews and speak in public in English. That's tough for some people that are natural born speaking in English. I guess he has a long career to make all of those adjustments and he has plenty of time to learn the language and move on from there."
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