Mancini remains day-to-day with jammed pinky finger

SARASOTA, Fla. - Trey Mancini has attempted one stolen base in his major league career, back in 2017. He's 1-for-1. But a successful swipe of second in his spring debut is costing him games.

Mancini remains day-to-day after jamming his left pinky finger, which he had wrapped this morning while standing at his locker.

The hand slammed into Blue Jays shortstop Lourdes Gurriel Jr. on Feb. 24 in Sarasota, and while Mancini continued to play the finger swelled and impacted him at the plate. To the point where manager Brandon Hyde removed him from Saturday's game against the Red Sox in the fourth inning.

DJ Stewart pinch-hit for Mancini, who's 2-for-5 this spring.

"The throw was a little bit to the left of shortstop, so I dove in and just like jammed it really bad against the shortstop," Mancini said. "It's just jammed pretty bad, and I tried to come back and couldn't really swing too well. My swing was different, so we decided to take a few days. It's early in spring. I should be back in a couple days, I think. It just needs a couple more days of not really doing much on it and it should be good.

"I hate that it's a pinky injury. It definitely affects your swing a lot because it's the bottom finger where you're holding the bat, so it wears the brunt of a lot of impact, too. You need 10 fingers to swing, and unfortunately the smallest one is the one that's kind of keeping me out for a few days."

There's a pinky epidemic in camp. Jonathan Villar was removed from yesterday's game with swelling in his right little finger, also from diving into the bag on a stolen base.

"Yeah, they just told me that," Mancini said. "I'm going to start wearing one of those oven mitt-looking things whenever I'm on the basepaths. I might try to steal a couple more bags this year.

"I had been pretty rusty trying to steal bags. I think it was my first attempt maybe since '17, so yeah, either go feet first or wear an oven mitt and I should be good."

Got to find the humor in it, right?

"I'm surprised, honestly," he said. "I thought it would be fine the next day, and it kind of just lingered on for a little bit because I swung at a pitch last year and it hit my middle finger and that one actually felt pretty good the next day. So I thought this would be the same, but this one has actually lingered on a little longer. But it should be good in a couple days.

"It's been day-to-day. The other day I came back, but it's hurting pretty bad, so didn't want to push it and change my swing or anything because I've been feeling pretty good before that. So it's just going to take probably a couple more days and I should be in there. "

Meanwhile, catcher Jesús Sucre is receiving a crash course on the pitching staff after finally obtaining his work visa and arriving in camp.

Sucre caught a couple of bullpen sessions yesterday, including one from Mychal Givens, and he's setting the target today for Jimmy Yacabonis.

Yacabonis was scheduled to make the trip to Fort Myers, but Hyde called him last night with instructions to stay in Sarasota. Dylan Bundy and David Hess each are expected to work three innings, leaving an inadequate amount for Yacabonis.