TORONTO — As Cubs catcher Miguel Amaya beat out a single in the eighth inning Wednesday night, his left foot hit the front of first base. His leg buckled. He went flying.
He remained on the ground as trainers and manager Craig Counsell checked on him. After minutes of examination, several members of the group and Blue Jays first baseman Vladimir Guerrero Jr. waved for the cart beyond left field.
“To watch the tumble there, we couldn’t see what he hurt,” said rookie Matt Shaw, who’d reached third on Amaya’s hit. “You couldn’t tell live that it was his ankle . . . but we just saw his reaction, him on the ground there.
“It’s just really hard. We’ve seen everything Miggy’s done to get back here.”
The game Wednesday — a 4-1 Cubs win — was Amaya’s first game back from the 60-day injured list after being sidelined for 2½ months with a strained left oblique. After he was carted off the field, his X-rays showed no break, Counsell said after the game.
But the news still wasn’t good: Amaya was diagnosed with a sprained left ankle and is headed back to the IL.
“It’s swollen up pretty good already,” Counsell said. “Bad luck, unfortunately, and we’re going to miss him.”
The Cubs are calling up their top prospect, outfielder Owen Caissie, a source confirmed. Caissie has a .966 OPS in Triple-A.
Amaya’s fingerprints were all over the victory. Until the injury, he was behind the plate guiding starter Cade Horton (7-3) through a masterful performance.
“[The Blue Jays are] the hardest team to strike out in baseball,” Counsell said. “And so what [Horton] did to a very good lineup is just a continuation of what we’ve seen over this past month. He was awesome. We’ve had some superlatives with him on each start, and this was maybe the best one.”
Horton racked up a career-high eight strikeouts in 5⅔ innings, carrying a no-hit bid through the fifth before he finally gave up a line-drive single to Andres Gimenez with one out in the sixth. He was charged with just one run after Gimenez scored on a double by Guerrero off reliever Andrew Kittridge.
Horton’s streak of scoreless innings ended at 28„, the third-longest of any Cubs player age 23 or younger, according to team historian Ed Hartig. Horton’s streak trails only that of Ken Holtzman (33 innings in 1969) and Vern Olsen (30 in 1941).
“I think me and Miggy had a really good game plan,” Horton said. “And hate to see what happened to him. . . . It was awesome [having him back]. Just adding him to our lineup and having him behind there — he’s a special player, great teammate.”
Thanks to solo home runs by Michael Busch and Shaw, the Cubs were clinging to a 2-1 lead when Amaya came up to bat in the top of the eighth. He squared around to bunt Shaw over, but the ball rolled foul. Then, on a two-strike count, he extended to hit a low slider and pulled it to shortstop Bo Bichette, racing up the first-base line to beat the throw.
“Him being able to put together that good at-bat right there puts us in a position where we were in good shape to score runs,” Shaw said.
Busch hit a sacrifice fly to bring Shaw home. Seiya Suzuki then hit a ground ball to center to drive in Reese McGuire, who had replaced Amaya at first, extending the Cubs’ lead to three for the final score.