BOSTONCarl Crawford was in the Red Sox starting lineup, batting second and playing left field, Tuesday against righthander Justin Verlander and the Tigers.
Crawford sat out the game Saturday against the Yankees in New York when it was announced that he was on a four-day schedule as a preventive measure to protect his left elbow. Although, at that time, the Sox had had a scheduled off-day Thursday. He also had a day off on July 22.
Before the game Tuesday, general manager Ben Cherington said that plan was again being modified for Crawford, who has said he will need surgery on his elbow at some point. Crawford was out until July 16, missing 89 games after wrist surgery in mid-January and a subsequent elbow ailment.
Cherington said Crawfords days off will be on more of an as-needed basis.
When that was going on in New York this weekend I had a chance to talk to manager Bobby Valentine and Carl and the medical staff," Cherington said. The facts are that Carls coming off an elbow injury and coming off a rehab and was working really hard to get back so he could be activated as soon as possible.
Perhaps in a perfect world we would have taken longer, but he wanted to play and we wanted to get him out there and try to get all our horses out there. And so mostly because of that, we kind of wanted to get him back out there as soon as we could. We talked about the benefit of a day off here and there in the early part of his activation to kind of get him through the first few weeks and managed that.
Bobbys given him a couple of days off now and he may continue to do that. Thats up to him. I think after the conversations that weve had, I think everyone understands the plan we have going forward. Just something weve got to manage and keep an eye on and Carls toughing it out and wants to play. Every once in a while maybe well give him a day so he can get through this. Were going to listen to what he says day to day. Se want to make the off days count and make sense. I think wed prefer not to put a specific number of days on it.
Boston Red Sox
At one point, I remember talking about him three or four days from now taking a day. That number was used but after talking more this weekend. I think its just going to be more of a feel thing.