Castellanos exits early with wrist, finger injuries

ARLINGTON -- Nick Castellanos had been dealing with a sore left wrist for a week when he took a ground ball off the tip of his right index finger in batting practice Tuesday afternoon. The chain reaction knocked him out of Tuesday's 7-6 loss to the Rangers.

It's complicated, to the point that while the Tigers list him as day to day with a bruised right index finger, Castellanos said it's actually the left wrist that knocked him out.

"This wrist has been kind of sore the past couple of days," Castellanos said, "so I've been wearing tape on it. I've been able to suck it up because I've been able to dominate [my swing] with [the right] hand right now hitting. Well, I can't really dominate with that hand [with the finger bruised], so now [the left] hand took over, and the swing against [Cole] Hamels didn't feel too well. I didn't think I could help the team with my at-bats tonight, so I let [manager] Brad [Ausmus] know."

Castellanos lined out to end the top of the first inning, and left in the bottom of the second. Jefry Marte, who started the game at first base, replaced him at third, with Andrew Romine entering the game at first.

The wrist injury, Castellanos said, resulted from fatigue at the end of a long season of swings. Castellanos ranks third on the team with 579 plate appearances.

"I've been hitting well with it," Castellanos said, "but I couldn't really get away with it."

The bruised finger also might have affected him in the field. He fielded Mitch Moreland's grounder in the bottom of the first with a chance to get a force out at third base, but wasn't sure about rushing a throw across the infield. He took the sure out at first base, and Prince Fielder advanced to third, where he scored on an Elvis Andrus sacrifice fly.

"He felt like he could play," Ausmus said, "but after the first inning he decided that he wasn't able to play through it. I applaud the effort trying to play through it, but he felt like it was affecting him so negatively that it would affect the outcome of the game negatively."

The only remedy for the wrist at this point is an offseason to rest. Castellanos will get treatment on his finger to try to get it back to playable. The Tigers already are without Victor Martinez, who's day to day with left quad soreness, and they are trying to give Miguel Cabrera days off down the stretch.