Josh Hamilton missed the Rangers 6-3 loss to the Mariners on Friday night and has been ruled out for the rest of the series. This is a story with a lot of moving parts, and if you piece together the timetable that's been released to the media, it raises a lot of questions.
↵According to a report from Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News, Hamilton was sent home on Friday morning, rather than taking the team flight to Seattle.
↵He was pulled in the fourth inning of their game on Tuesday against the LA Angels with blurred vision, which he thought was the result of a sinus infection. However, according to Grant, the team's doctors could not find any definitive cause for his condition.
↵Adrian Beltre also missed Wednesday's game, and both he and Hamilton wanted to play on Thursday. Washington watched both of them go through pre-game warmups, but it didn't take long for him to make a decision on Hamilton.
↵The Associated Press has the quotes:
↵↵↵Rangers manager Ron Washington said [Hamilton] was `out of sorts' during the pregame workout.
↵``We hit him a ground ball and he'd catch and spin and lost his balance. We're not messing with that,'' Washington said. ``We hit a fly ball and he misjudged it. We're not messing with that. We got him off the field.''
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Here's another eyebrow-raising quote that Washington gave Grant earlier in the week:
↵↵↵"My level of concern has not wavered on this," Washington said. "We want to do what we can to give him peace of mind. If we can do that, we think then we can just go on. He will play for us again this year. Don't worry about that."
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The earliest Hamilton could possibly return would be Monday, when the Rangers begin a huge four-game home series with the Oakland A's, who are currently four games behind them in the AL West.
↵That's at least five games Hamilton will have missed in the middle of a pennant race with an undisclosed illness. If he's missing games next week, this story could get really interesting.
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