B.J. gets another day

Posted May 3, 2008 by Marc Lancaster

Updated May 3, 2008 at 04:49 PM

BOSTON—It took the Rays a while to come up with a lineup today, and the one they finally posted once again does not include B.J. Upton.

Joe Maddon said the concern is Upton swinging and missing, which is how he hurt his shoulder the other day. He will be available to pinch-hit and it sounds like the Rays expect to have him in there tomorrow, but they’ll wait until the morning to see how he feels.

In other news, an MRI on Al Reyes revealed biceps tendinitis. Nothing too severe, as Maddon was quick to point out, adding that he thought Reyes might only miss a couple more weeks. We’ll see on that front. Apparently Reyes may play catch Monday and go from there.

Scott Kazmir, as you might imagine, is bouncing off the walls in anticipation of his season debut tomorrow. The Rays’ one concern is the weather. They don’t want to get in a situation where he warms up, then has to sit around for an hour because of a rain delay. They’ll manage that very carefully tomorrow, with rain very much in the forecast.

Here are the lineups for tonight’s action, with no rain on the way as far as we can tell:

Rays
Iwamura 2B
Crawford LF
Hinske DH
Pena 1B
Longoria 3B
Navarro C
Gross RF
Haynes CF
Bartlett SS
Shields P

Red Sox
Ellsbury CF
Pedroia 2B
Ortiz DH
Ramirez LF
Lowell 3B
Youkilis 1B
Drew RF
Varitek C
Lugo SS
Beckett P