Timlin injured; DL unlikely
TOKYO -- Mike Timlin ended up with stitches on the ring finger of his pitching hand, after fielding a comebacker to the mound in an exhibition Wednesday.
Terry Francona said it was unlikely the injury would result in a stint on the disabled list for Timlin, but didn't say if Timlin would be able to play in Japan.
''I don't know yet,'' Timlin told reporters. ''We have to check it out. I can play catch. The ball hit me off the end of the finger. I tried to get my hand out of the way, actually. I wasn't trying to reach and catch the ball.''
Both teams must set an active roster of 25 players by Tuesday. Boston brought 31 players on the trip to Japan on Thursday, including Curt Schilling, who is on the 60-day disabled list with a shoulder injury.
Timlin, Tim Wakefield, Schilling, and Bryan Corey spent this morning in Kanagawa Prefecture, at the Zama Army Base. We'll have some notes on that later, from pool reporter Ian Browne of mlb.com. Wakefield's wife accompanied him, as did Timlin's son Jake. The players posed for pictures and signed autographs at the session, for soldiers and their families.
In other notes from this morning at the Tokyo Dome, Coco Crisp is likely to be available for the games. Francona is hoping for six innings from Wakefield and five from Clay Buchholz in their exhibition game starts in the next two days.
Crisp was limited to two major league exhibition games in Florida because of a groin injury that cut short his competition with rookie Jacoby Ellsbury for the center field job.
"His last two days were so good that at least we think he's probably available," Francona said Friday.
Crisp told Francona on Thursday that he felt rusty but "unless he feels something (wrong physically), he'll probably have to be active."
The Red Sox play exhibition games Saturday against the Hanshin Tigers and Sunday against the Yomiuri Giants before facing Oakland on Tuesday and Wednesday. They resume the regular season in Oakland on April 1 and complete the series the next day.
"When we get to Oakland I'm hopeful that kind of all bets are off," Francona said. "Like, `OK, let's go play baseball."
Oh, and Francona reported that he won the cribbage tournament on the plane. Go figure.
Material from the Associated Press was used in this report.
They visited an Army base? A US Army base? In Japan? Nice work - lets remind the Japanese while we're there were not about baseball - but good old American Imperialism. How about a game against the Red Sox and the Japanese National team while we're there - and make it a real world series? Oh thats right - MLB is afraid we would lose - so that offer from Japan has not been accepted. Lets visit Iraq on the way back to Boston.
Not surprised by Tito saying that at all. The bigger question is did Pedroia say he won the tournament.
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