TORONTO — Miguel Amaya, wearing a black boot on his left foot, gingerly walked on crutches through the visitors dugout Thursday afternoon.
The Chicago Cubs catcher is nursing a left ankle sprain that landed him on the 10-day injured list less than 24 hours after returning to the lineup for the first time since May 24. His night ended abruptly Wednesday during the eighth inning of the Cubs’ 4-1 win over the Toronto Blue Jays.
The severity of Amaya’s injury remains unclear, though X-rays were negative. The Cubs called up top prospect Owen Caissie to take his spot on the roster.
“It’s frustrating coming off the IL and something like this happens,” Amaya said Thursday. “All I want to do is be on the field and help the team win, but it’s sad that this happened.”
In a gut-wrenching sequence, Amaya went down in a heap past first base after awkwardly hitting the front of the base as he beat out an infield single. Cubs trainers immediately came out of the dugout to look at his lower left leg.
The Cubs should gain clarity in the next week for how long Amaya might be sidelined. They need the significant swelling in his ankle to dissipate to get a better sense of the healing process, which could include getting an MRI to check the ligaments. Any sense of a timeline won’t be known until then.
“He’s disappointed,” manager Craig Counsell said Thursday. “I mean, you spend two months on an injury, get back involved with a team that’s got a chance to accomplish some fun things, and you get one day and it’s over again.”
Two days earlier Amaya couldn’t stop smiling as he stood in front of his locker in the visitors clubhouse Tuesday. Fresh off the 60-day IL after an oblique injury that sidelined him nearly three months, he was thrilled to be around his Cubs teammates.
“It feels amazing to be back,” a grinning Amaya said. “Thank God I’m healthy and now (here) to help the boys. … It was a long process, and I was just day by day listening to my body and playing some games down there (in Arizona) and getting the necessary recovery.”
A morose Cubs dugout watched Wednesday as a cart arrived to shuttle Amaya off the field. The 26-year-old catcher was in tears. Blue Jays first baseman Vladimir Guerrero Jr. patted Amaya on the shoulder before the cart pulled away.
Amaya hit his head on the ground when he fell, and per protocol Cubs trainers asked him precautionary questions on the field. He didn’t immediately show concussion symptoms and was reevaluated Thursday morning.
“You’re hoping it was just a collision or a scare and that it just scared him, but it was pretty clear after 20 seconds that he either sprained it or worse,” Counsell said after the game. “You knew something was pretty seriously wrong pretty quickly.
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“It’s bad luck unfortunately and we’re going to miss him.”
Reese McGuire entered as the pinch runner for Amaya, eventually scoring on Seiya Suzuki’s single to give the Cubs a three-run lead. The Cubs opted to carry three catchers on the big-league roster when Amaya came off the IL on Tuesday to preserve their depth, as McGuire is out of minor-league options and playing well.
Matt Shaw was on second base and immediately took off for third when Amaya hit a soft grounder to Blue Jays shortstop Bo Bichette. Shaw couldn’t tell from his vantage point what happened but could tell it was serious based on Amaya’s reaction.
“He’s busting his ass to try to beat out a ground ball,” Shaw said. “It was really hard. We’ve seen everything he’s done to get back here to the year he’s had up to the point where he hurt his oblique.
“He’s an unbelievable guy, someone we love having here, and he’s a huge part of this team. So to see him go down, get carted off like that, was really hard. We feel for him a lot, and we’re thinking of him and we’re praying for him.”