Ernie

Clement

Toronto is making more of an effort to manage Okamoto’s workload after he played 93 games before the All-Star break. It’ll be Ernie Clement moving over to the hot corner in his place on Wednesday evening.

With his team having totaled two runs the last three days, Jays manager John Schneider will just keep tweaking things until something clicks. Nathan Lukes and Vladimir Guerrero Jr., who have been hitting second and third, respectively, have both been moved up one slot tonight. Kazuma Okamoto is down to sixth after spending most of the last month batting fourth and fifth.

Clement singled in the first inning, then doubled in the second. He then brought a run in to score on a sacrifice fly in the third, part of a five-run inning for Toronto. Clement later knocked his third hit to lead off the ninth and scored on a groundout. The 30-year-old infielder is hitting .298/.319/.434 with seven homers, 39 runs scored, and 30 RBI across 354 plate appearances.

Clement is 14-for-60 with one RBI in his last 17 games, with his slump briefly predating his brief absence due to a hip injury, and he’s now sitting at .293/.316/.430 for the season. Remarkably, though, he was the leading vote-getting in AL All-Star balloting anyway. He’s on pace to finish with 13 homers, 53 RBI, 69 runs scored and about two WAR in 622 plate appearances.

It sounds like a precautionary move and fantasy managers should consider him day-to-day for now. It’ll be rookie Sean Keys moving over to cover first base with Ernie Clement at the hot corner and Luis Urías entering the lineup at second. Guerrero has been through a tough season at the plate with just four home runs across 81 games. There should be an update on his status following Tuesday’s contest in Toronto.

Clement was held out of the starting lineup each of the previous two nights due to soreness in his hip, though he did come in off the bench on Wednesday and play a couple of innings at shortstop. He’s back in there at shortstop and batting second for the Jays against Rangers’ southpaw MacKenzie Gore on Thursday evening in Toronto.

Clement seemed a little hesitant in the field while continuing to deal with hip soreness. The plan going into tonight was for him to return to the starting lineup against a lefty on Thursday. That still might happen, but he’s kind of limited at the moment.

Clement has been battling left hip soreness. The versatile 30-year-old figures to be available off the bench in this contest and is presumably day-to-day heading into a four-game series against the Rangers. It’ll be Luis Urías drawing into Toronto’s lineup for the second consecutive game in his absence.

Clement is still bothered by soreness in his left hip, and while he was able to play Monday, he’ll grab a seat for the second game of the series versus Houston. Consider Clement day-to-day, but this could be a lingering issue for the 30-year-old.

Clement came off the bench during Saturday’s win at Wrigley Field after being held out of the lineup for the second straight game with left hip soreness. The versatile 30-year-old infielder is back at shortstop and hitting sixth on Sunday afternoon. He’s had a strong year at the dish overall, slashing .292/.311/.440 with seven homers, 28 RBI and two steals through 75 games.