Yohendrick Piñango is making John Schneider's next Addison Barger decision a lot harder than the Blue Jays probably expected.
When Barger first came off the injured list, Toronto optioned Piñango to the minors to clear the roster spot. On paper, that made sense.
Barger is one of the Blue Jays' better power bats, and the club was not going to leave him off the active roster once he was healthy enough to return.
But that move lasted only 2 days. Barger was forced back onto the injured list with a different issue, and Piñango was right back in the dugout.
Now the bigger question is coming again. When Barger is ready to return, the Blue Jays cannot just default to sending Piñango down a second time and act like nothing has changed.
Because something has changed. Piñango has played too well, and Toronto's lineup has looked too light for the club to casually pull one of its few hot bats.
He entered this stretch hitting .364 with a .404 on-base percentage, a .477 slugging percentage, and an .881 OPS. Even better for Toronto, his strikeout rate sat at 14 percent.
Piñango is helping in the one place Toronto needs it most
That is the real reason he should stay. The Blue Jays are not exactly overloaded with offense right now, so taking a productive bat out of the lineup would be a strange way to fix the roster.
Toronto's team numbers tell the story. The Blue Jays rank 25th in runs scored, 24th in RBI, 25th in OPS, 23rd in slugging percentage, and 25th in on-base percentage.
That is not a lineup in position to remove contact and on-base skill just because a roster move looks cleaner on paper.
The problem also goes higher than one bench debate. Vladimir Guerrero Jr. has gone 7-for-55 over his last 15 games, a .127 average, which only adds more pressure to every other hitter capable of giving the lineup life.
Piñango is not going to solve all of that by himself. But he is giving Schneider something the offense has not had enough of lately: quality at-bats, balls in play, and traffic on the bases.
That matters more than people think. A rookie who is controlling the strike zone and getting on base during a team-wide offensive stall is not someone you push aside lightly.
Barger still belongs in the lineup when healthy. That is not really the debate. The debate is whether Piñango has done enough to force Toronto into finding somebody else to move.
At this point, the answer looks clear. Yohendrick Piñango has earned more than a temporary look, and if the Blue Jays send him back down when Addison Barger returns, they may be taking one of their few steady offensive sparks right out of the lineup.
Should Yohendrick Piñango stay with the Blue Jays when Addison Barger returns?
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