{"id":664490,"date":"2026-04-05T12:13:21","date_gmt":"2026-04-05T12:13:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/664490\/"},"modified":"2026-04-05T12:13:21","modified_gmt":"2026-04-05T12:13:21","slug":"blue-jays-catcher-alejandro-kirk-out-with-left-thumb-fracture-as-injuries-pile-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/664490\/","title":{"rendered":"Blue Jays catcher Alejandro Kirk out with left thumb fracture as injuries pile up"},"content":{"rendered":"

The injuries are piling up for the Blue Jays.<\/p>\n

All-Star catcher Alejandro Kirk was placed on the injured list Saturday after dislocating and breaking his left thumb, which he suffered on a foul tip during Friday\u2019s game against the White Sox.<\/p>\n

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He is set to meet with a specialist to determine if surgery is needed.<\/p>\n

After the game, Kirk was feeling about as one would expect.<\/p>\n

\"Alejandro<\/p>\n

Alejandro Kirk #30 of the Toronto Blue Jays hits a home run against the Athletics during the ninth inning in their MLB game at the Rogers Centre on March 28, 2026 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s all right, as [Kirk] can be,\u201d Toronto manager John Schneider said, per ESPN<\/a>. \u201cHe\u2019s pissed, obviously. Tough news for us and for Kirky for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kirk has been one of the best backstops in baseball, making two All-Star appearances and winning the 2022 Silver Slugger since taking over full-time behind the plate for the Blue Jays four years ago.<\/p>\n

Last season, Kirk hit .282\/.348\/.421 with 15 homers in 130 games.<\/p>\n

He was one of the Blue Jays\u2019 biggest bats during their American League pennant-winning run in October, hitting .254\/.349\/.493 with five long balls.<\/p>\n

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Tyler Heineman and Brandon Valenzuela are expected to split time at catcher in Kirk\u2019s absence.<\/p>\n

Kirk\u2019s thumb issue adds to a long list of injuries the Blue Jays are dealing with during the early going of the 2026 season.<\/p>\n

The team began the year with starting pitchers Shane Bieber (right elbow inflammation), Jos\u00e9 Berr\u00edos (right elbow stress fracture) and Trey Yesavage (right shoulder impingement) on the injured list.<\/p>\n

Earlier this week, starter Cody Ponce went down with an ACL injury<\/a> while trying to field a ground ball, which is expected to sideline him for a significant amount of time.<\/p>\n

The Blue Jays are sitting at 4-3 on the season heading into Saturday\u2019s play despite the injuries.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The injuries are piling up for the Blue Jays. All-Star catcher Alejandro Kirk was placed on the injured…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":664491,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2378],"tags":[3426,5,377,2554,54086,53,387,4,1271,1949,1414,282,70,2553,5196,15820,396],"class_list":{"0":"post-664490","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-toronto-blue-jays","8":"tag-alejandro-kirk","9":"tag-baseball","10":"tag-blue-jays","11":"tag-bluejays","12":"tag-cody-ponce","13":"tag-detroit-tigers","14":"tag-jose-berrios","15":"tag-mlb","16":"tag-shane-bieber","17":"tag-the-athletics","18":"tag-the-blue-jays","19":"tag-toronto","20":"tag-toronto-blue-jays","21":"tag-torontobluejays","22":"tag-trey-yesavage","23":"tag-tyler-heineman","24":"tag-white-sox"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116352046011740462","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/664490","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=664490"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/664490\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/664491"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=664490"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=664490"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=664490"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}