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The Texas Rangers, who have baseball's best record, learned Tuesday they'll be without All-Star outfielder Josh Hamilton until June.
Hamilton broke a small bone in his right shoulder during Tuesday's game against Detroit and will be out six to eight weeks, the Rangers announced.
Hamilton, the defending American League MVP, suffered the broken bone on a head-first slide at home in the first inning against the Tigers. He won't swing a bat for at least a month, the Ranger said.
"You don't want anybody to get hurt,'' Rangers general manager Jon Daniels said on a conference call. "He's a big part of our club?But the reality is that we built the club to deal with injuries like this. We tried to have as much depth as possible.''
David Murphy, who played in place of Hamilton most of last September, hit .355 with three homers and 17 RBI the final month. He will now be the starting left fielder, Daniels said, and first baseman Chris Davis will be called up to replace Hamilton on the active roster.
"It was just a stupid play,'' Hamilton told reporters after the game. "I definitely shouldn't have done it.''
Hamilton, the DH for the first time this season, was sent home by third-base coach Dave Anderson when he noticed that no one was covering home plate on a pop up by Adrian Beltre in foul territory.
"I listened to my third-base coach,'' Hamilton said. "That's a little too aggressive. The whole time I was watching the play I was listening. [He said],'Nobody's at home, nobody's at home.' I was like, 'Dude, I don't want to do this. Something's going to happen.'
"But I listened to my coach. And how do you avoid a tag the best? By going in head first and get out of the way and get in there. That's what I did."
Anderson said he simply was trying to be aggressive, and Daniels supported Anderson's decision.
"There was nobody covering home plate, so we tried to steal a run there," Anderson said. "He made a pretty good play. That's a tough play for a catcher, running away and shovel pass and try to tag a guy. There was an opportunity with two outs and we tried to take advantage of it.
"You go to home plate and see what happens," Anderson said. "He can run, so you take a chance."
Said Daniels: "I have not seen the play yet, but I have absolutely no issue with Dave sending him. We play an aggressive style of baseball. We run, we take extra bases. The chances of getting hurt are minimal in my mind.
""I would encourage Dave to continue to be aggressive. That's the way we play.''
Anderson didn't fault Hamilton for not scoring, but says he should not have dived head first into home.
"I always want him to slide feet first no matter what he does," Anderson said. "You play this game long enough and I've gone through it too sliding headfirst and have had some injuries. Sometimes you can't help it. Your instinct just tells you to dive and try to get there.
"But most of the time you try to go feet first if you can to try to stay away from injuries."
See photos of: Texas Rangers, Josh Hamilton
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