{"id":162334,"date":"2025-09-17T04:07:10","date_gmt":"2025-09-17T04:07:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/162334\/"},"modified":"2025-09-17T04:07:10","modified_gmt":"2025-09-17T04:07:10","slug":"latest-on-bo-bichettes-knee-injury","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/162334\/","title":{"rendered":"Latest On Bo Bichette’s Knee Injury"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bo Bichette<\/a> will not return before the start of the postseason, Blue Jays manager John Schneider told reporters this evening (via Arden Zwelling of Sportsnet<\/a>). However, Schneider said that a recent second evaluation on the shortstop\u2019s sprained left knee was encouraging enough that he could resume baseball activities later in the week.<\/p>\n

Bichette suffered the injury a week and a half ago when he collided with Yankees catcher Austin Wells<\/a> in a play at home plate. Toronto announced the issue as a left knee sprain when they placed him on the injured list last week. Schneider specified last night that it\u2019s a PCL sprain (via Mitch Bannon of The Athletic<\/a>). Today\u2019s second opinion was viewed as more of a routine follow-up than an indication the team feared a serious injury.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s decent news, all things considered, though the Jays have yet to firmly announce that he\u2019ll be ready for the start of the playoffs. Jon Morosi of The MLB Network<\/a> reported this afternoon that a postseason return remained a possibility. That will clearly be Bichette\u2019s goal. He would return without having logged game reps for three weeks. It\u2019s a suboptimal situation but one the Jays would be happy to live with if it meant getting one of their best hitters back in October.<\/p>\n

Bichette\u2019s regular season concludes with a .311\/.357\/.483 slash across 628 plate appearances. He still leads the majors in hits (181) and doubles (44). He\u2019s 15 knocks up on Bobby Witt Jr.<\/a>, so it\u2019s possible he\u2019ll lead the American League in hits for the third time in his career despite the injury. Bichette also connected on 18 homers with a career-low 14.5% strikeout rate. He\u2019s on track to cash in as he hits free agency going into his age-28 season.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s possible he has played his final regular season game in a Jays uniform, though he and the team will hope to finish this year with a long playoff run. It remains to be seen whether he\u2019d be mobile enough to play shortstop next month. \u201cIn a perfect world, if he can come back and play short, great,\u201d Schneider said last night (link via Keegan Matheson of MLB.com<\/a>). \u201cWe\u2019ll see how this goes. With how he\u2019s moving, it seems to me that hitting will be a little bit in front of everything else. I think we\u2019ll know more tomorrow or the next day, but if we can get his bat back, hell yeah, I\u2019ll take that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bichette\u2019s injury has kicked\u00a0Andr\u00e9s Gim\u00e9nez<\/a> from second base to shortstop. Ernie Clement<\/a> is playing second regularly, leaving third base to Addison Barger<\/a>. That\u2019s a better defensive grouping than they had with Bichette up the middle, but Barger\u2019s move to third base leaves Nathan Lukes<\/a> as the everyday right fielder. Lukes has been a league average hitter overall but is batting .225 with a .238 on-base percentage in September.<\/p>\n

If Bichette is able to hit but too injured to take the field, they\u2019d be left to press George Springer<\/a> into regular right field work. Springer has had a resurgent season at the plate but only started 48 games and logged 411 2\/3 innings of outfield work. Toronto also hasn\u2019t closed the door on a late-season comeback from Anthony Santander<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The switch-hitting Santander has been a non-factor in the first season of a five-year deal. He hasn\u2019t played an MLB game since the end of May because of a left shoulder issue but started a rehab assignment at Triple-A Buffalo last week. He\u2019s working as a designated hitter with the Bisons. Santander might be limited to a bench role if he gets back for the playoffs, especially if Bichette is questionable for defense. Even if Santander\u2019s first season in Toronto has been a disaster, Schneider would surely welcome the opportunity to turn to a player who hit 44 home runs last year as a power bat off the bench.<\/p>\n

Toronto has a magic number of four to clinch a playoff berth. That should happen by the end of this week. They hold a five-game cushion over the Yankees in the AL East. They\u2019re three games ahead of the Tigers for the AL\u2019s top seed and six games up on the AL West-leading Mariners. Locking down the division would almost certainly ensure they finish as a top two seed and secure a first-round bye. The Division Series begin on October 4.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bo Bichette will not return before the start of the postseason, Blue Jays manager John Schneider told reporters…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":162335,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[378,382,99],"class_list":["post-162334","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-anthony-santander","tag-bo-bichette","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162334","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=162334"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162334\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/162335"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=162334"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=162334"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=162334"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}