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BUFFALO — Danny Jansen, Lourdes Gurriel Jr., Rowdy Tellez, Cavan Biggio, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Bo Bichette are all in the big leagues.

Not so long ago, just about everyone expected Anthony Alford to be right there with them.

But on Monday night in Buffalo, Alford was sitting in the Triple-A Bisons dugout ahead of yet another return from the injured list, this time sitting out for 10 days due to a strained right groin.

The 25-year-old outfielder is all-too-familiar with the injured list and it’s not where he ever wants to be.

Neither is Buffalo.

Despite all the stops and starts, he's got the majors on his mind.

“I know I can play up there,” Alford said in his typical, soft-spoken way, shortly before doubling and stealing his 21st base of the season in his return to the Buffalo lineup. “I’ve never really had consistent at-bats up there. It was always spot starts or I would come in and pinch hit, so I never really got a chance to showcase my ability. I’ve always understood. I’ve always had older guys in front of me, so you kind of have to wait your turn. KP was there, (Curtis) Granderson was there, (Steve) Pearce was there. Those guys get paid a lot of money, I know they’re about to be out there.”

Considering he made his big-league debut on May 19, 2017, Alford should’ve been entrenched before all of the aforementioned names currently in the Blue Jays lineup arrived, but circumstances and his body have held him back.

Name a body part and it’s likely failed Alford at some point.

This year alone, an oblique injury cost him six weeks right in the middle of a hot streak.

When he returned earlier this month, it lasted just seven games before his groin gave out.

Once again, he’s trying to reboot, and continue with a significant swing adjustment he made after batting just .132 over his first 20 games with the Bisons in April.

“We had him make some changes,” Bisons manager Bobby Meacham said. “His swing path is a little different so we made some changes to help that along and what I was really proud of was he was able to compete at this level while making pretty major changes in his swing. His approach is a little bit better and it’s a little bit different and it’s getting better every time. The progress he’s made this season has really impressed me.”

The adjustment was one to help level out Alford’s shoulders on his load.

His front shoulder would drop and cause him to be frequently late on fastballs because it took longer to get his bat through the zone, a product of the extra left shoulder movement.

Instead of his barrel getting through the zone quickly, it would “swoop” through the zone and he’d have trouble finding hard contact consistently.

“I was fouling off a lot of fastballs and ending up in a lot of two-strike counts,” Alford said.

The issue was first noticed by Bisons hitting coach Corey Hart, prompting Alford to put in extra work with the organization’s first-year hitting co-ordinator, Hunter Mense.

“I spent a lot of time with him and we made the adjustment,” Alford said. “My main focus is loading and keeping my shoulders parallel, keeping my shoulders square. What that did for me is just consistently put my body in a good hitting position. I wasn’t really missing pitches and I was barrelling up more pitches. At that time, even my 0-for-4s would be 0-for-4 with two line outs. I wish I could’ve made that adjustment earlier, but I didn’t really know what was going on until I got a chance to work with Hunter.”

It appears the adjustment took.

From the beginning of May through June 23 when he hurt his oblique, Alford slashed a robust .308/.392/.465 with three homers and 13 stolen bases.

While there’s still more swing-and-miss than you’d like to see (28.6 per cent strikeout rate), he’s also posting his highest walk rate (9.4 per cent) since his breakout 2017 season in Double-A when he took free passes 12.1 per cent of the time.

Add in a slight uptick in power and there are signs the bat is coming around.

But in addition to the swing adjustment, Alford decided he had to alter his mindset, as well.

That choice stemmed from a disappointing situation in late March when he travelled to Toronto thinking he would be a part of the opening day roster after Kendrys Morales was traded to the Oakland A’s on the eve of the season, but was instead left off in favour of Tellez.

“My first year in Triple-A, you start seeing all these different transactions and you wonder, ‘OK, when is my time?’ ” Alford recalled. “So you start worrying about the wrong things, things that you can’t control, and they can become a distraction. I think that’s where I was in April, as well, especially going back up and coming back down before opening day. That was mentally frustrating for me.”

With less than a week to go before rosters expand and a number of players currently on the 40-man make their way to Toronto, Alford is once again left wondering if he’ll be one of them.

At the big-league level, manager Charlie Montoyo is already trying to find at-bats for outfielders Randal Grichuk, Teoscar Hernandez, Derek Fisher, Billy McKinney and, eventually, Gurriel Jr., who’s currently sidelined by a quad strain.

Alford getting a September call is not a given.

But he’s desperately hoping to get a chance to prove he can be an integral piece of the rebuild, alongside all of the prospects he’s watched whizz past him.

“I love the city of Toronto, I love the people in Toronto, and I love the group of guys they have up there,” Alford said. “I think Toronto’s going to make a lot of noise in the future with the talent that’s coming up through the system. Not just Bo and Vlad and Cavan, but also you have (Nate) Pearson and (T.J.) Zeuch coming up and some more prospects and I think they’re going to be really good. I hope I’m a part of it.”