Last night, in the loss to the Toronto Blue Jays, Nathan Lukes hurt his knee. Nothing like Bo Bichette, but still.
We saw him hit a foul ball on the knee, take a few moments to recover from it and finally draw a walk after a 12-pitch at-bat. That got some juice out of Bryce Miller, that.
Even if Lukes remained in the match following the hit, we still saw that the club chose, a few minutes later, that it was better to play it safe in his case.
Myles Straw eventually replaced him on the right.
The good news under the circumstances is that Lukes did not suffer a fracture. John Schneider even opened the door, following yesterday's meeting, to seeing Lukes play this afternoon, on the sidelines of game #2 of the series.
This will obviously depend on his state of health when the time comes. As long as the club does not push him unnecessarily, as was done with Bo Bichette a month ago…
Lukes is a valued teammate in Toronto and I'm sure a lot of guys are hoping he'll be able to play Game 2 to level the series with a win for each side.
The Blue Jays don't want to go play three games in the West trailing 0-2.
Lukes isn't just nice: he's also very helpful. He is sometimes the one who pulls the team up as the club's #2 hitter and I'm sure the manager hopes to be able to count on him.
Especially since the Mariners don't have a lot of left-handed pitchers on their pitching staff…
- Vladdy knows the offense needs to deliver more.
- A change of pitcher gives hope to the opponent.
- Bryce Miller was expected to give four innings. He gave six.
- No, it's not Kevin Gausman's fault.
- The Mariners MVP made the difference.
