Blue Jays' Nathan Lukes is red hot since discovery of vertigo

TL;DR

Nathan Lukes of the Toronto Blue Jays struggled early in the season due to undiagnosed vertigo. Since the condition was identified, he has significantly improved his performance.

Key points

Nathan Lukes started the season poorly.
He was playing with undiagnosed vertigo.
His performance improved significantly after diagnosis.

Nathan LukesToronto Blue Jays

Blue Jays' Nathan Lukes is red hot since discovery of vertigo originally appeared on The Sporting News. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here.

Nathan Lukes started the season absolutely miserably for the Toronto Blue Jays.

Turns out, though, he was playing with vertigo -- just no one knew it yet.

Since the Blue Jays figured it out, Lukes has been on fire.

He began the season 2-for-31.

He's 8-for-his-last-12.

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Lukes had "been experiencing intermittent dizziness and nausea since spring training," Sportsnet's Arden Zwelling had written on X.

Vertigo is not an easy thing to play baseball with.

"Vertigo can cause an unusual sensation in which it feels as if your surroundings are in motion when still," Zwelling wrote on X at the time the news came out. "Makes it difficult to shift visual focus from one spot to another quickly and track moving objects. Explains Lukes’ 44% chase rate, an extreme outlier for his career."

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Clearly, the Blue Jays realizing that something was wrong with Lukes has allowed them to help him out and get him back to a more steady place.

It's working out at the plate, and it's a major development for Toronto -- which was already missing a few key hitters due to injury and needed guys to step up. Now healthy, Lukes is coming through.