Joey Votto turns opening day fan as his Blue Jays future remains on hold

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ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — It wasn’t that way Joey Votto expected to spend opening day of what he hopes will be a season that yields the next chapter of his big league career, but he wasn’t going to miss it just the same.

Votto wasn’t in the starting lineup for the Blue Jays when they opened their season here on Thursday. He technically isn’t on the team, either.

But that didn’t keep one of the greatest Canadian-born players in history away from Tropicana Field, where the Jays trounced the Tampa Bay Rays 8-2.

Votto posted a picture of himself on Instagram in a seat at the Trop high above the third base line and the Blue Jays dugout with a caption that read: “Couldn’t miss opening day.”

As for the progress of an ankle injury he suffered when he tripped over a bat in the dugout after his first pre-season at-bat, the team is taking it slow with Votto.

“I think he’s days (away) from baseball activities,” Jays general manager Ross Atkins said earlier this week. “He still feels a little bit of tightness in his ankle.

“Then he’ll want to get into essentially having a full spring training and getting that workload built up in his legs and his swing so that he can recover and bounce back on a daily basis.”

As for where Votto would begin game action, Atkins said they’ll discuss options with the Etobicoke native. Triple-A Buffalo would be a possibility and so would remaining in Florida to face live pitching here in the Florida Complex League.

“We’ll work with him on that,” Atkins said of Votto, who was signed to a minor-league deal that would pay him $2 million US should he crack the Jays lineup. “He’s obviously extremely open-minded. He wants to make sure, most importantly, that he’s at an elite level and not just a level where he’s participating. We will be very mindful of giving him every chance to do that.

“The most likely scenario would be some time essentially building up a spring training and then moving to Buffalo at some point. He doesn’t have a firm timeline on that, but we’ll conned on a daily basis as an organization.”