Abreu's status day to day with swollen finger

ARLINGTON -- Jose Abreu missed his third straight game with a swollen right index finger, but the pain seems to be dissipating, according to pregame comments Tuesday night from White Sox general manager Rick Hahn and manager Robin Ventura.

"The swelling has decreased," Hahn said before the White Sox opened a three-game series against the Rangers at Globe Life Park. "He still has a little bit of a bruise on the finger below the knuckle that hasn't completely resolved itself. We're going to hold him out today, keep him away from activity again today, but hopefully tomorrow start ramping up again and hopefully have him back out there in the not-too-distant future. It's just not quite to the spot where we want to put him out there in games."

"You could send him out there and one swing could probably send him back five more days," Ventura said. "It's gotten a lot better than it was in Houston. It's just not to a point where I'm comfortable having him go out there and swing full-time in a game."

Adam LaRoche started at first base against the Rangers in Abreu's absence, with Conor Gillaspie moving to designated hitter and Gordon Beckham staying at third. Ventura mentioned that Abreu talked to his manager about getting in the lineup, but he understands that missing a couple of days in exchange for a healthier long haul is best for the team.

Although he's not doing any sort of baseball activities, the White Sox have not ruled out Abreu for Wednesday's game against the Rangers.

"He's going to start doing more baseball activities early probably tomorrow. We'll see how it goes and make a decision at that point," said Hahn of Abreu, who sustained the injury two weeks ago but came out in the eighth inning of Friday's game against the Astros. "We've been able to make do the last couple of days without him, and hopefully that continues here.

"It's certainly not something that we want to rush him back out there and then turn this into an even longer absence than it's already been. We'll err on the side of caution and if that means also sitting out tomorrow, then we'll adjust accordingly."