Bautista sidelined with lingering back spasms

TORONTO -- Jose Bautista's name was still missing from the Blue Jays' lineup card on Wednesday against the Chicago White Sox.

The right fielder missed his sixth game of the season, and though he's added an ear infection to his list of ailments, it's his lingering back spasms that are holding him out.

"It's happened to me the last two nights, where I leave here and I feel like I'm going to be good enough the next day to play, and the next day, it's tight again," Bautista said after the 7-0 loss. "Hopefully that doesn't happen again [Thursday]."

The two-time home run champion can't attribute any specific play or moment where things got bad, but it's not subsiding and there's no timeline for it to go away.

"You've got to wait until it calms down, take your meds, do your treatments, and that's basically all you can do," Bautista said.

With ice strapped to his back, Bautista said that even finding a good way to sleep is difficult right now. He likens the experience to an ugly bout with neck spasms in May of 2011.

Bautista has been absent from batting practice and wasn't available to pinch-hit for the second consecutive night.

"If I do anything athletic-activity related, it's just going to make it worse," he said. "It doesn't make sense to even try."

The slugger hasn't played since Sunday at Kansas City.