Blue Jays place Danny Jansen on the injured list with groin strain

The Toronto Blue Jays will have to dig out of their recent skid without one of their hottest hitters, as catcher Danny Jansen has been placed on the 10-day IL with a groin strain.

Jansen had been terrific for Toronto of late, with a .286/.318/.595 slash line and three homers over his last 11 games. He’d become the Jays’ primary starter behind the plate, as Alejandro Kirk continues to struggle with a measly .333 slugging percentage. The team has called up Tyler Heineman to take Jansen’s place on the active roster, but the lion’s share of the catching duties figure to fall to Kirk, who Toronto has to hope can recapture the form that made him an All-Star in 2022.

A former 16th-round pick of the Blue Jays back in 2013, Jansen surprised most scouts by turning himself into a top-100 prospect after hitting at just about every level of the Minors. He broke out in a big way last season, with 15 homers and a .516 slugging percentage in just 72 games. The team has yet to issue a timetable for his return, and will likely know more once the results of Jansen’s MRI come back. Given how difficult a groin injury would make catching, though, you have to figure that he’ll miss at least a couple of weeks.

Toronto enters play on Friday against the Minnesota Twins last in the AL East at just 26-25, losers of seven of their last eight games.