SEATTLE — Did you really think George Springer would miss this game? No chance.
When John Schneider texted Springer on Sunday morning ahead of Game 6, Springer told his manager to stop asking. When Schneider approached Springer in the clubhouse after he arrived at Rogers Centre, Springer told him to beat it. Respectfully, of course, but there was no conversation left to have.
If Springer could walk, he was playing, and heâ€s back in the lineup for Game 6 of the ALCS, batting leadoff.
Springer took a 96 mph fastball off his right kneecap from Seattleâ€s Bryan Woo in Game 5, and in the moment, it looked more serious than the “right knee contusion†Springer has escaped with. Springer underwent an X-ray in Seattle, and he then went straight for a CT scan after the Blue Jays landed back in Toronto near 3:30 a.m. ET.
“He was in good spirits yesterday, I think just getting some reassurance with the CT scan coming back [negative],†Schneider said. “It was going to take a whole lot more, I think, to keep him out of the lineup. So he was feeling better yesterday, feeling better today.â€
Springer is a necessary piece of this team, fresh off a renaissance season in which he hit a career-high .309 with 32 home runs and a .959 OPS. Heâ€s set the tone for the Blue Jays on the bases, too, inventing the new position of “OPâ€, which means “offensive player.†Being a DH involves running the bases, too, Springer believes, so youâ€ll see OP, not DH, next to his name in the lineup that hangs in the Blue Jays†clubhouse.
These are the types of games the Blue Jays brought Springer to Toronto to have a moment in, too. The 2017 World Series MVP came to Toronto with a reputation as one of the best postseason players in Major League Baseball. Even though itâ€s taken this organization a while to get Springer close to the World Series again, heâ€s got one more shot, and itâ€s going to take more than a heater to the knee to make him miss this.
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