Manny Ramirez to stay sidelined all week

This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.

PHOENIX -- The Dodgers’ Manny Ramirez will be kept out of spring-training games at least through this week as he nurses a sore left hamstring, Manager Joe Torre said today.

‘We’re just going to lay low for a while to get rid of this,’ Torre said before the Dodgers’ split-squad game with the Oakland A’s at Phoenix Municipal Stadium. (The other squad was playing the Seattle Mariners today.)

Ramirez, late to spring training after recently signing a new two-year, $45-million contract, first noticed tightness in the hamstring last Thursday. After being the Dodgers’ designated hitter in Friday’s game, he aggravated the injury Sunday while playing left field and retrieving a double in a game against the Colorado Rockies.

‘Last time we DH’d [Ramirez] and felt good so we put him in the lineup,’ Torre said. ‘We’re just going to keep him out’ of games, he said, adding that ‘I can’t give you a time’ for how long he’ll be out of the lineup ‘but it’s certainly going to be through the weekend and probably beyond that.’

Torre said Ramirez still should have enough at-bats this spring to be ready for the season opener April 6. ‘The thing we’re certainly not going to attempt to do is take a chance with this and then, once you start playing, it never goes away,’ Torre said.

Ramirez, who took some swings in a batting cage today and is expected to continue his normal morning practices, ‘was frustrated’ at not being able to play, Torre said. ‘He’s always in a good frame of mind pretty much, but he certainly doesn’t like the inactivity,’ Torre said.

--Jim Peltz