Choo gets breather, Choice scratched to end road trip

WASHINGTON -- Shin-Soo Choo, who had started every game of the road trip, was given Sunday off to rest his sore left ankle. Michael Choice was supposed to replace him in left field, but was scratched with a bruised left shin.

Choice fouled a pitch off the shin on Thursday in Minnesota. He did not start either Friday or Saturday in Washington, but he was initially in the lineup on Sunday. However, Choice was unable to get it loose and was eventully scratched from the lineup.

Daniel Robertson started in left. It's the first time he started since his collision in the outfield with Alex Rios on May 22. Robertson sustained three small fractures in his left cheek, but he is able to play by wearing a hard clear plastic mask on defense and a special batting helmet at the plate.

Choo has been bothered by the ankle since spraining it against Oakland on April 21, and he will likely be dealing with it all year. The outfielder had four hits in his last 26 at-bats, and manager Ron Washington suggested that Choo's ankle could be impacting his power at the plate.

"It probably has," Washington said. "You need your lower half to hit. That's his push-off leg, so that could be why he is not turning on balls. This is a good time to get him two days off."

That left Adrian Beltre as the last man standing on the road trip. Despite being the oldest position player on the team, Beltre started all 11 games of the road trip at third base.

"If I replaced Beltre, you'd probably see somebody like [Luis] Sardinas playing third base," Washington said.

While playing every day, Beltre went into Sunday hitting .337 in his last 26 games with five home runs, 15 RBIs and a .529 slugging percentage.