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Roger Mooney

Roger Mooney covers the Tampa Bay Rays for The Tampa Tribune, TBO.com and News Channel 8. He has covered the Rays since their first season in 1998, including 11 years for the Bradenton Herald. Roger has also covered Florida, South Florida and Florida State football, the Bucs and the Lightning.

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Bartlett’s status still in question

Posted Jun 2, 2010 by Roger Mooney

Updated Jun 2, 2010 at 06:13 PM

ROGER MOONEY
TORONTO Manager Joe Maddon said Jason Bartlett’s strained right hamstring showed some improvement Wednesday, but the shortstop might still be headed for the disabled list.

Maddon said Bartlett can swing the bat, but there is soreness when he tries to field ground balls.

“It’s the lateral (movement) on the ground balls, bending over to pick them up. So, there has been improvement. We’re definitely going to have to do something one way or the other by the time we get to Texas,” Maddon said before Wednesday game with the Blue Jays at the Rogers Centre.

Bartlett’s absence has caused some problems during this series, most notably Tuesday night when Maddon used every player on the bench and gave up the designated hitter as he tried to maneuver his team in position to win, which the Rays did with a ninth inning comeback.

But Maddon doesn’t want to be caught short against the Rangers.

“Going into the Texas series we don’t want to play with one person short for this long of a period, so we’ll make a determination that he’s either going to be able to play at that point or bring somebody in,” Maddon said.

And that somebody doesn’t have to be an infielder.

“It would be how do we match-up hitting wise against these guys and trying to score a couple more runs,” Maddon said. “If we can improve our offense a little bit, we may try to do that if this comes down to a move like that.”

That could open a spot for Dan Johnson (.319 average, 14 home runs, 44 RBIs at Durham), Justin Ruggiano (.301, 4 HR, 18 RBIs) or Joe Dillon (.301, 5 HR, 24 RBIs).

Maddon still put Bartlett’s chances of landing on the disabled list at “50-50.”

For Bartlett to remain active, Maddon said he would have to “at least play in some manner, maybe not an entire game or just hit, whatever. We don’t want to go short as of Friday.”