Raburn, Boesch Make Ordonez's Return Less Pressing
Magglio Ordonez hopes to be back in the lineup by the weekend.
Manager Jim Leyland wants that troublesome right ankle completely healthy so he doesn't have to worry whether Ordonez can play or not or if the right fielder is going to have to come out of games due to soreness.
Oh, and that .208 batting average he is sporting is no inducement to rush him back, either.
There's some thought Ordonez isn't hitting well because the lingering soreness in the ankle he fractured last July doesn't let him put a good swing on the ball.
There are two more reasons for Leyland not to rush Ordonez back -- Ryan Raburn and Brennan Boesch.
Raburn, playing left in Ordonez's absence, and Boesch were in a de facto platoon situation earlier in the season. Raburn, seemingly more comfortable as the recipient of a two-year deal during the winter, has responded well to hitting third in the batting order, where Ordonez would hit were he in the lineup.
Raburn knows he's going to see a lot of fastballs hitting one notch above cleanup man Miguel Cabrera, like the 1-1 heater he whistled off the wall in right center in the seventh inning for a two-out RBI double. The hit broke a scoreless tie as Detroit went on to a 3-0 victory at Oakland and ran its modest winning streak to three games.
Boesch, who walked twice and scored a run, looks way less edgy at the plate so far this season. He's closer to the hot hitter he was before the All-Star break last year than to the confused sub-.200 he was after the break.
His two walks gave him five to add to 39 official at-bats. Last year he had 464 official at-bats with 40 walks.
There's no question Ordonez, who gets paid $10 million this year, will be returning to the lineup soon. But maybe not as soon as he hopes he is.
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