The Toronto Blue Jays aren't willing to risk third baseman Brett Lawrie suffering another long-term injury.
The team announced Monday that the native of Langley, B.C., will open the season on the disabled list with strained rib cage. The Blue Jays had been holding out hope that Lawrie might be ready to open the season on time, but decided a careful approach was needed.
Last season Lawrie tried to play through pain and ended up missing two months with a right oblique injury.
"It's a precautionary thing," manager John Gibbons said Monday before Toronto's exhibition game against the Philadelphia Phillies. "And with those injuries, like we've said before, if you aggravate them again sometimes they become long-term and we don't want to risk that."
Lawrie has not played since March 6 after he strained a muscle in his left rib cage in Canada's exhibition game against the Cincinnati Reds leading up to the World Baseball Classic.
Because he has not played his move to the disabled list will be backdated, so that he will miss only the first four games of the season if he is ready to return.
Gibbons put no time frame on Lawrie's return.
"It's not like he had a big setback or anything," Gibbons said. "You look at the schedule, a week from tomorrow we're starting. He had limited at-bats before he went to the WBC and he hasn't had any since. Basically, we're not going to be able to get him into enough games before the season starts to feel comfortable with it."
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