Hunter continues to rest after hamstring cramp

DETROIT -- Torii Hunter was walking around the Tigers' clubhouse slowly and carefully Tuesday afternoon after leaving Monday's game against the Royals with a right hamstring cramp. It was more tightness than pain, but it was still significant.

"It just knotted up really bad," Hunter said. "We're just kind of icing it, treating it, trying to get the blood flowing in it."

Though he's listed as day to day, it's a severe enough injury that he sounded less than optimistic for a return for either of the remaining games of the Royals series.

"Hopefully by the Cleveland series, I'll be ready to go," Hunter said.

Hunter said he first felt the hamstring over the weekend series against Minnesota, starting with the long game Saturday and continuing into the Sunday afternoon game on short rest. It tightened on him when he went from first to third base on Victor Martinez's ninth-inning fly ball that Oswaldo Arcia dropped at the right-field fence.

Once he singled on Monday, he said, "I was trying to go two [bases] and right out of the box, I pushed it too hard."

It was a severe enough cramp, he said, that Miguel Cabrera carried him up to the clubhouse.