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The Toronto Blue Jays have placed starting pitcher Dylan Cease on the 15-day injured list with a left hamstring strain.
Blue Jays manager John Schneider updated Cease’s status hours before the Blue Jays started a three-game series with the visiting Miami Marlins on Monday at Rogers Centre.
Cease left the Blue Jays’ 4-1 loss to Pittsburgh on Sunday with two outs in the top of the fifth inning. Slugger Vladimir Guerrero Jr. left in the bottom of the inning with a right elbow contusion after he was hit with a pitch.
Guerrero was not in the starting lineup for Monday’s game.
Cease has a 3-3 record and 3.05 earned-run average in his first season with Toronto after signing a seven-year, $210-million US contract.
The Blue Jays have 13 other players on the injured list, including starting pitchers Shane Bieber (elbow), Berrios (elbow), Bowden Francis (elbow), Cody Ponce (right knee) and Max Scherzer (forearm).
Earlier Monday, Toronto reinstated outfielder Nathan Lukes from the 10-day IL and made him available for the series opener against the Marlins.
Lukes had been out since April 24 with a left hamstring strain.
He recently played two games with the single-A Dunedin Blue Jays, going 2-for-3 with one home run, three runs batted in and two walks.
3rd in AL East
Lukes is batting .250 with eight RBI with Toronto this season.
Toronto optioned infielder/outfielder Davis Schneider to triple-A Buffalo in a corresponding move.
The Blue Jays entered Monday third in the American League East with a 25-28 record
As for Guerrero, the Blue Jays said an X-ray of his elbow on Sunday did not reveal a fracture.
Schneider said Guerrero reported feeling numbness in his arm and hand after being hit.
Schneider and head athletic trainer Jose Ministral came to the mound in the top half of the inning after Cease shook his leg several times between pitches. Cease stayed in to retire Spencer Horwitz but was replaced by left-hander Mason Fluharty.
Cease allowed two runs and four hits in 4 2/3 innings. He walked one and struck out eight. It’s just the second time in 11 starts this season that Cease has failed to finish five innings.
Cease has made at least 30 starts in each of the past five seasons, one of just four big league pitchers to do so. The others are also Blue Jays starters: Jose Berrios, Patrick Corbin and Kevin Gausman.
The Blue Jays currently have 13 other players on the injured list, including starting pitchers Shane Bieber (elbow), Berrios (elbow), Bowden Francis (elbow), Cody Ponce (right knee) and Max Scherzer (forearm).
