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Thursday, September 19, 2013

Iglesias leaves game after being hit by pitch, X-rays negative; 'I got lucky'



DETROIT — It did not sound good. It did not look good.

Obviously, it did not feel good.

When Jose Iglesias crumpled to the ground, and huddled there, clutching his left arm to his chest, knees drawn up, having just gotten nailed by a 95 mph pitch from Seattle’s Tom Wilhelmsen, everyone feared the worst.

“To be honest with you, I thought it was probably broke. It didn’t sound good,” manager Jim Leyland said. “When I heard it, I thought it was probably not good.”

“Oh, yeah, absolutely,” Iglesias said later in the locker room, his left hand encased in an Ace bandage. “I’m feeling that way, too. It was 95 mph in the hand. I got lucky. We got lucky it’s not broken.”

Head trainer Kevin Rand hustled out to check on Iglesias the second he went to the ground. He helped the shortstop get his left batting glove off then, after a short conversation with Leyland, assisted him into the clubhouse where they got X-rays taken.

Those, thankfully, were negative.

“It’s big for me. The only thing I’m concerned about is a broken hand, miss the rest of the season, which would be not good for us. You know, it’s not broken, that’s a good thing. And I’m happy about it,” Iglesias said.

“It is painful, it is painful. But we’ll see.”

While the news that it was just a contusion was the best-case scenario, it doesn’t mean Iglesias will play Friday, when the Tigers open a three-game series against the White Sox.

“The other part of that is, that doesn’t mean he can play for three or four or five days, necessarily. So I’m hoping we can get it right,” Leyland said. “We’re getting it treated, getting it iced, everything we’re supposed to do. Probably won’t be able to play tomorrow. I don’t know that for a fact. Just have to wait and see.”

The contusion is on Iglesias’ glove hand, so the main impact may be when he’s swinging a bat. The left hand is the bottom hand on the bat for a right-handed hitter.

“That’s probably where. That left hand is your lead hand, too, so it’s not -- I mean, it’s not good,” Leyland said.

It’s better than it could’ve been, though.

“I was on deck. I was getting ready to hit, so I didn’t know the buzz in the dugout, but we were just hoping he was OK. When we heard the news, it was like ‘OK, good,’ because anybody, if you get hit in the hand, we think the worst,” Torii Hunter said. “It’s weird, especially for a ballplayer, whenever you get hit in the hand. There’s a lot of little bones in your hand, and the smallest fracture can put you out, and we really need that glove, and his bat in the lineup.”

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