Toronto Blue Jays designated hitter George Springer was placed on the family medical emergency list after his paternity leave expired.
MLB players can get up to three days on the paternity list for the birth of their child. Now that Springer’s three days on paternity leave are up, the team has placed him on the family medical emergency list as they wanted to give him a few extra days with his family.
According to Blue Jays reporter Shi Davidi, everyone in the Springer family is well, but Blue Jays manager John Schneider said the extra couple of days will allow the slugger to tie up some “loose ends.” The hope is that Springer will return on Monday when the Blue Jays take on the San Francisco Giants.
“To give him more time at home, Blue Jays moved George Springer to family medical emergency list after his paternity leave expired. Manager John Schneider said everybody is doing well and he needed some more time ‘tying up some loose ends.’ Could be back for SF on Monday,” Davidi wrote on X.
George Springer This Year
Last season, Springer was one of the top hitters in the AL, winning the Silver Slugger award as the league’s top DH and finishing seventh in MVP voting after hitting 32 home runs with a .959 OPS.
But this year, Springer has taken a big step backwards, as he’s hitting just .221 with 8 home runs and a .681 OPS. It has not been the season that he or the Blue Jays expected after such a massive year last season, but at the same time, he’s 36, so perhaps Father Time is starting to catch up to him.
Hopefully, now that Springer has had a few days to spend with his family, he will come back strong for the Blue Jays after his time on the family medical emergency list expires and lock in for the second half of the season, as the Blue Jays need him if they are going to make a playoff push.
Blue Jays Right Now
The Blue Jays enter Saturday’s game against the Seattle Mariners with a 42-46 record, a far cry from the 94-win pace they had last year when they won the American League East and went all the way to the World Series, ultimately losing in seven games to the Los Angeles Dodgers.
Now that we are past the halfway point in the season, the Blue Jays really need to get going if they are going to make a legitimate playoff push in the AL. The good news for the Blue Jays is that the league as a whole has struggled this season, so the team still has a great shot of capturing a Wild Card spot and making the playoffs that way, as winning the division is very unlikely to happen at this point.
If the Blue Jays can get a strong second half from Springer and fellow struggling slugger Vladimir Guerrero Jr., it would put the team in a much better position to qualify for the playoffs than right now, with the two stars scuffling along at the plate through much of the season’s first half.
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