Mancini out with hand injury

TORONTO – Trey Mancini walked into the visiting clubhouse this afternoon with his right hand wrapped in black tape. His name missing from the lineup. His mind uncertain when he'd get back on the field.

Mancini was hit in the sixth inning last night by a 91 mph sinker from Blue Jays starter Alek Manoah. He reached first base on a slow roller up the third base line, and a lengthy challenge led to the ruling that he struck out swinging.

Richie Martin pinch-hit for Mancini in the seventh.

X-rays didn’t reveal a fracture in the hand, but Mancini isn’t available to play tonight and might not be able to leave a short bench Wednesday.

“It’s swollen. Not great, but luckily no fracture, so I say day-to-day, but it’s pretty swollen,” Mancini said. “Once the swelling goes down it should be good again to grip the bat again and go, but I’m not exactly sure.

“I don’t want to put a day or a timetable on it, but I’m hoping in the next two or three days.”

Mancini didn't think he'd require a stay on the injured list.

“Not at all, actually,” he said. “Hopefully avoiding that.”

Mancini received treatment on the hand last night and again this afternoon.

The play makes it “tougher” for Mancini to accept, he said, because he offered at a ball tailing in and eventually was called out.

“The whole road trip, for kind of the first time this year, I’ve been getting sped up a little bit at the plate and haven’t been seeing it quite as well,” he said. “Right there, I just got way too overanxious after taking two fastballs. The first one was because of the long (fifth) inning. Just got a little overanxious and kind of auto-swung, and next thing I knew, it was coming at me fast, so I had to continue swinging and took it in the hand.

“I knew it hit me in the hand. I saw that it was going down the line, and I thought maybe I’d try to sell it and see if I can get an infield single instead of walking back to the dugout, but it took me too long to decide to do that and I got thrown out. Then they reviewed it and saw that it hit my hand, so they made the right call.

“It’s pretty darn swollen.”

Mancini is batting .290/.373/.424 with nine doubles, a triple, six home runs and 25 RBIs in 249 plate appearances. He’s 2-for-16 with seven strikeouts on the trip, which began in Kansas City.

Adley Rutschman is the designated hitter tonight. The bench is down to second baseman Rougned Odor and rookie Kyle Stowers, who made his major league debut last night.

Both left-handed hitters are sitting against Blue Jays southpaw Yusei Kikuchi.

The Blue Jays put reliever Julian Merryweather on the 15-day injured list with a left abdominal strain. Merryweather surrendered Stowers’ RBI double in the seventh and walked off the mound with the injury.

For the Blue Jays
George Springer DH
Bo Bichette SS
Vladimir Guerrero Jr. 1B
Teoscar Hernández RF
Lourdes Gurriel Jr. LF
Raimel Tapia CF
Matt Chapman 3B
Gabriel Moreno C
Cavan Biggio 2B

Yusei Kikuchi LHP