The Red Sox just announced that Mike Lowell has been placed on the 15-day disabled list with a sprained left thumb.
Jed Lowrie has been purchased from Pawtucket, and has been placed on the roster. He'll be here for the game, wearing No. 12.If Lowrie gets in the game, it will be his major league debut. He is not, however, in the lineup.
Gordon Edes, Globe Staff wrote:Mike Lowell pretty much knew he was headed for the 15-day disabled list when he woke up yesterday morning and still couldn't move his left thumb.
"But I'm encouraged by the MRI," he said after last night's 12-6 Red Sox win over the Tigers, "because it's not a complete tear of anything, which would have caused me to miss significant time."
Lowell, who strained a ligament after rolling over on his glove hand while making a stop of Ivan Rodriguez's leadoff ground ball Wednesday night, becomes the first Sox regular to go on the disabled list in more than a year. The Sox recalled infielder Jed Lowrie from Triple A Pawtucket to take the roster spot of the 34-year-old third baseman. Lowrie, who played for the PawSox in the afternoon, arrived at Fenway Park 20 minutes before last night's first pitch, according to club spokesman John Blake.
Determining how much time he will miss, Lowell said, will require the swelling to go down, but the injury is worse than the thumb injury he sustained last season, which caused him to miss three games.
"At first [doctors] said two to four weeks," Lowell said. "Fifteen days is a best-case scenario.
"Last year batting practice was a little annoying but I felt like I could take four good swings in a game. I can't even put my hand in my glove without being uncomfortable. And I haven't picked up a bat because I knew I couldn't do it."
Kevin Youkilis played third base last night and is expected to remain there for the foreseeable future, leaving his consecutive errorless streak at first base at a big league record 198 games. Sean Casey played first and went 2 for 5 with three RBIs.
The Red Sox lost 500 player days on the DL last season, according to figures compiled by Baseball Prospectus, though only one position player, backup catcher Doug Mirabelli (strained calf), spent time on the DL. The Yankees, by contrast, lost 1,081 player days on the DL in 2007.
Lowell has played in 150 or more games in each of the last four seasons, a total he will now be unable to match in 2008, his third with the Sox. This is his fourth trip to the DL, first in almost five years. He missed the last 32 games of the 2003 season after a pitch by Montreal's Hector Almonte fractured a bone in the ring finger of his left hand. Miguel Cabrera, now with the Tigers, replaced Lowell and played a key role in the Marlins winning the World Series that season.
Lowell missed two weeks of the 2000 season when he sustained what was called a strained abductor muscle on the outside of his thumb. Lowell had sustained a similar injury in the minor leagues in 1998, tried to come back too soon, and wound up missing six weeks.
In 1999, he was placed on the DL while recovering from testicular cancer; he ended up playing 97 games for the Marlins that season.
Lowrie, customarily a shortstop, started at third base for the PawSox yesterday afternoon, his first game at the position this season. He played two games there last season.
Sox reserve infielder Alex Cora was taking ground balls at third base before batting practice and felt a "twinge" in his elbow, according to manager Terry Francona, causing him to curtail his activity. Cora was dressed for last night's game.
Gordon Edes, Globe Staff wrote:Lowell said he is still not close to swinging a bat. "The swelling's gone down a little," Lowell said of his left thumb injury, which officially is being called a sprain by the club but involves a strained ligament. "I'd say [Friday], it went down a lot from the day before. I think [yesterday] is kind of like [Friday]. I'm assuming there's going to be a point where it's going to kind of stay as is, but I'm hoping in like three days we can start doing movement exercises." Lowell says he keeps his removable splint on most of the time. "I purposely don't want to take it off, just in case I catch it on something walking," he said. "I don't want you guys to see a grown man cry."
Amalie Benjamin, Globe Staff wrote:Lowell took live batting practice on the field yesterday, the first time he had done so since injuring his thumb. He was out for early batting practice, at 3:30 p.m., and did well enough that, barring any problems resulting from the activity, he'll do it again today. "I wanted to watch him," said Francona, "because when a guy comes in and tells you how good he feels, you want to have your eyes on him, where you can say, 'Hey, whoa, slow down, big fella, you don't look that good.' And he looked great. I was waiting to have him kind of nurse the bat through the zone and he looked great. So again, how he responds to that is important but he really did look good. I was very impressed. Very pleased." The absolute earliest that Lowell could take another step, a rehab assignment, would be this weekend
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by foeplay » Thu Apr 10, 2008 4:23 pm 
