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After shipping out underachieving left fielder Travis Snider the Jays invaded the Big Apple offering a reconfigured lineup vs. the Yankees Friday night. The Jays’ freshly shuffled deck included pure rookie David Cooper at designated hitter, Edwin Encarnacion back at third, Rajai Davis batting leadoff and Juan Rivera in left.

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“We’ve basically internally discussed in the next 7-10 days when we’ve got two other players returning off the disabled list,” Farrell said of what could be a temporary defensive setup. “We’ve got an opportunity to take a look at a different lineup, a different alignment. This is the way we’ll go as of now. If situations present itself, we do have some flexibility with (Mike) McCoy and (Corey) Patterson if we do need defensive replacements for a stronger defensive team, but this gives us the ability, at least initially, to produce more runs with the current lineup.”

The more runs will be mostly thanks to Bautista. How amazing has his recent run been? Consider in his last 10 games, Jose has 14 hits, 16 walks and a hit-by-pitch. His batting average is .483, his slugging mark is 1.276, his on-base average is .674 and his OPS a stunning 1.950.

In the harsh light of daze provided by the sudden demotion of outfielder Travis Snider to Triple-A Las Vegas after 29 days and 99 plate appearances, it’s probably the best thing for young Brett Lawrie that he was not promoted yet. How long would they have stuck with him if he struggled? Snider can now tell him face to face. The organization’s much-ballyhooed patience seems a 19-month mirage, replaced by the new slogan “Help us win now — or get out the way.”

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And despite what the Jays say, Snider’s problems are less mechanical than they are mental. With a world of natural talent in reserve, the front office insists his epiphany is closer than you think. Hey, it was even closer until his home address became Vegas, after Thursday’s game in Texas.

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“We also have to be responsible and try to win as many games as we can,” Anthopoulos said in a Friday morning conference call. “We could have stayed the course and I think Travis would have underachieved. He’s certainly talented enough, and with his makeup and work ethic he can fight through anything, but I think ultimately we don’t see Travis as a seven-, eight-, nine-hole bat. We think he has the chance to be a middle-of-the-order bat, but we need to get him right with his swing.”

The Jays have their best hitting instructor, Dwayne Murphy, coaching with the major-league club, so they are sending Snider somewhere else to learn. Snider has been a model student. He reported to spring training 15 pounds lighter than a year ago. He worked tirelessly at his outfield defence with coach Torey Lovullo and talked about wanting to earn a Gold Glove down the road. He bought into the more aggressive baserunning idea and loved what it brought to his game. He had become close with his core teammates, like Ricky Romero and J.P. Arencibia, guys that are going to lead the Jays into the future.

“This is more about mechanical swing changes,” Jays general manager Alex Anthopolous said in a conference call Friday, less than 24 hours after optioning Snider to Triple-A Las Vegas to work on his hitting.

“It’s not about riding it out and just knowing it’s going to come.”

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“I just think he got away from his swing,” Anthopolous said from New York where the Jays open a three-game series against the Yankees Friday night.

Anthopolous said Snider has been pulling off the ball and getting too far in front of it rather than staying closed and driving through it. He’s also been flying open with his front shoulder and coming around the ball, the GM said.

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Taking Snider’s spot on the roster is David Cooper, a left-handed hitting first baseman who has hit .395 with two home runs and 19 RBIs in 20 games in Las Vegas. He will DH while Juan Rivera takes over in left field and Adam Lind, who has three home runs and eight RBIs this week, stays at first base.

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The GM said demoting Snider was “something we’d been talking about for a little while now” and a number of options were discussed regarding his replacement. They included calling up outfielder Eric Thames (.373, 3 HR, 17 RBIs in Las Vegas) to play left field and leaving Rivera as the DH or bringing up Canadian Brett Lawrie (.398, 4 HR, 12 RBIs in Las Vegas), moving Edwin Encarnacion from third to DH and sending Rivera to left.

“In the case of David Cooper, he’s had a great eye at the plate down there,” Anthopolous said, noting the 24-year-old Californian has more walks than strikeouts and has hit left-handers “extremely well.”

Facing Alex Rodriguez with the bases loaded hardly fazed Ricky Romero. Because what the Toronto pitcher saw earlier in the game, now that was truly scary.

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The game took a dangerous turn in the third inning when Mark Teixeira scorched a line drive directly at Romero's head. The left-hander somehow managed to catch the ball inches from his face, and the impact sent him sprawling backward on the mound.

“It's one of those things where you just react. I don't know how I reacted, but had enough time,” Romero said. “He absolutely smoked that ball, there's no doubt about it.”

“I guess there's an angel next to me right there,” he said.

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Never rattled, Romero recovered quickly and struck out Rodriguez to end the inning.

“Absolutely not. I got back up and made pitches,” he said. “Obviously, you leave happy and nothing crazy happened.”

Romero was even able to joke about it after the game.

“I'm athletic, I'm athletic,” he said, laughing. “I knew I had it all the way.”

Paul Lehner was a first baseman and outfielder for seven major league seasons after World War II. He went by the nicknames of Peanuts or Gulliver, presumably for his travels. Lehner bounced to four teams in 1951, playing no more than 23 games with any of them. A year later his career was over.

According to the Elias Sports Bureau, only one other position player has played fewer than 25 games with four different teams in the same season. He is Jose Bautista of the Toronto Blue Jays, now the pre-eminent power hitter in baseball. His journey through Baltimore, Tampa Bay, Kansas City and Pittsburgh came in his rookie season, 2004, when he had never before played above Class A.

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Bautista has played every position but shortstop, catcher and pitcher -- though Ricciardi said that the team once clocked him off a bullpen mound at 90 miles an hour, just for fun. This season, Bautista has settled into right field, a power hitter’s spot. The utility label is long gone.

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But Bautista struggled to simplify his movements in the batter’s box before the pitch. He could never seem to get his front foot down on time, making him late on fastballs and ahead of breaking balls. His season high in homers with the Pirates was 16, and he hit just .241 for Pittsburgh.

“At times I had spurts where I was really good, but I was really inconsistent,” Bautista said. “I was either really good or really bad. There was no happy medium.”

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ohn Farrell, the Blue Jays’ new manager and the former Boston pitching coach, said he never realized Bautista’s intelligence before seeing him every day. Pitchers might feed him only fastballs one at-bat, then all slow stuff the next. But Bautista adjusts, standing close to the plate, eager for the challenge of the inside fastballs that once confounded him.

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“I had a pretty good idea of what my abilities would allow me to do if I was ever able to accomplish what I’m doing now, in the sense of my approach and getting ready on time and all that,” Bautista said. “I did feel like I could be an above-average player and a contributor to a winning team. I felt like I could give a lot more than I was giving.”

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A.J. Burnett attempts to bounce back from his first loss of the season this afternoon when the New York Yankees continue their three-game series against the Toronto Blue Jays at Yankee Stadium.

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"I'm definitely taking big steps forward," said Burnett, who produced the worst statistical season ever by a Yankee starter in 2010. "It was a grind early, and it could have easily flipped. Where I am now, the confidence I have, I know I can pitch. I don't have to rear back and rely on heat. I make pitches, and that's what I did."

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New York could use another strong outing from Burnett after it lost the opener of this series on Friday. Jose Bautista hit a two-run homer and J.P. Arencibia added a solo shot, as Toronto held on for a 5-3 win.

Bautista's home run put the Jays in front for good and was his American League-leading ninth of the season. He also tops the AL in runs (25), walks (28) and batting average (.372).

"Thankfully he's in our uniform," said Toronto manager John Farrell. "Whether it's an aggressive play on the basepaths, whether it's getting the right pitch in a certain situation and he drives it out of the ballpark. We've said it a number of times, he's very much a complete player."

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"He throws fastballs 95, 96 that move all over the place," Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter said of Romero. "He's mixing two-seamer, sinker, cutter and then he was mixing in his off-speed pitches. He pretty much kept us off-balance all night."

“We wouldn’t bring him here to sit on the bench,” manager John Farrell said. “The way he’s been swinging the bat at Las Vegas, we feel like he can help our offence.

“The fact he doesn’t have any glaring holes in his swing and has the ability to attack both lefties and righties makes this an opportune time to get him here.”

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About this time in 2010, Cooper started studying video of his swing from when he was at the University of California and realized his swing had gotten a little long.

“I was able to shorten my swing a bit and now my swing has less movement,” he said. “With that, I’m seeing the ball better, which has led to better results.”