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This is familiar territory for many players, but it is new for Travis, 24, whose upbeat personality became a clubhouse staple during April, when he batted .325 with six homers and a 1.018 OPS and was voted the American League rookie of the month. His bad-hop injury occurred just as opposing pitchers were beginning to baffle him for the first time in his nascent big-league career. That compounded his exasperation.

Since that ill-fated game in Cleveland, he has batted .185 with a .556 OPS. After building a reputation for unwavering plate discipline in his first few weeks, he began to chase pitches out of the strike zone. He had seen a lot of fastballs in the early going. Now, pitchers were “throwing everything at him,” Gibbons said.

And with each swing, Travis knew the pain would come.

“The biggest thing is that I’m kind of cutting my swing off to protect my shoulder,” he said.

One of his veteran teammates, Jose Reyes, was doing the same thing to protect an inflamed area around a cracked rib before he landed on the disabled list. Reyes has missed 21 games. He is expected to start a minor-league rehab assignment in the next day or two, but the soreness, while diminished, continues to linger, he said Tuesday.

“I’ll probably have to deal with it all season,” Reyes said, comparing the likely long-term effect with that of an early-season hamstring injury that continued to bother him for the duration last year.

Like the oft-injured Reyes, Travis is burning to return to the lineup and revive the form that made his April such a feel-good story.