Dukes gets “personal day”

Posted Jun 13, 2007 by Marc Lancaster

Updated Jun 13, 2007 at 05:17 PM

Elijah Dukes is not at Tropicana Field today. According to Rays officials, the parties decided mutually to take that course of action after the latest allegations against the troubled outfielder surfaced today.

“Just based on the events of today we’re just giving him kind of a personal day and we’re going to leave it at that,” said Rays manager Joe Maddon.

Executive vice president Andrew Friedman called Maddon earlier in the day to let him know about the decision. Maddon said he didn’t know if Dukes would play tomorrow.

Delmon Young will start in center field tonight, with Greg Norton in right. B.J. Upton remains unavailable because of a quad strain, leaving the Rays with 23 players tonight. Maddon said he didn’t give much consideration to using Carl Crawford in center.

“I just like to leave Carl alone,” said Maddon. “I think Delmon is kind of amenable to the whole situation, so I thought it was an easier thing to do. I just don’t want to mess up Carl’s vibe in left field.”

More as we get it…

For now, the lineups:

Padres
Giles 2B
Sledge LF
Gonzalez 1B
Bard C
Cameron CF
Kouzmanoff 3B
Branyan DH
Greene SS
McAnulty RF
Peavy P

Rays
Iwamura 3B
Harris SS
Crawford LF
Norton RF
Pena 1B
Wigginton DH
Young CF
Navarro C
Wilson 2B
Jackson P