CLEARWATER, Fla. -- Spring-training fields have long been notorious for bad hops. In the first inning Monday afternoon, Tigers third baseman Miguel Cabrera took one of those bad hops in his face.
Philadelphia's Hunter Pence pulled a smash that came up sharply and hit Cabrera in or near the right eye. Cabrera didn't go down, but he did suffer a cut under the right eye that forced him from the game. He went to a local hospital for stitches, the Tigers said.
Cabrera also was to have precautionary X-rays, the club said. The Tigers were not expected to provide an update on his injury until this morning.
Brandon Inge, who was playing second when the play happened, said the ball hit Cabrera in the sunglasses he was wearing and drove them into his face, causing the cut.
"He started panicking when he saw the blood," Inge said. "That's when I grabbed him and said, 'You're all right.' "
Phillies third-base coach Juan Samuel said he definitely heard the ball shatter Cabrera's sunglasses.
Phillies shortstop Jimmy Rollins said Cabrera got hit by "a ball that every infielder dreads, especially down here in these spring-training conditions -- that hop that is unavoidable."
Rollins added: "That was nasty."
Spring-training fields are considered more apt to produce hops than the fields that teams use in the regular season.
"It's just a different level of what we're accustomed to than when we get to our cities," Rollins said. "I don't know if there is much you can do. Obviously, spending the money down here isn't going to happen like it does up top (in the big-league stadiums).
"Down here, it's almost like a 'hang-with-'em,' unfortunately."
Then there is the Florida sun.
"Most places, that sun just cooks the field, and it's almost like playing on cement," Rollins said. "It's 80 degrees, and it just sucks the water right out of the dirt."
The only thing that surprised Rollins, a former National League MVP, about Cabrera's bad hop is that it came in the first inning. He said that bad hops are more apt to come later in the game, as the sun continues to harden the field.
Tigers manager Jim Leyland said that no third baseman could have gloved the bad hop off Pence's bat. He said if any third baseman had encountered that hop, then that third baseman would have been "in the same place Cabrera is now, getting stitches."
Leyland said he wasn't surprised Cabrera got hit because he noticed a lot of bad hops while hitting pregame infield grounders. Then he summed up Cabrera's status with a rapid burst of words:
"Obviously, it took a wicked hop, and it caught him, and he needs stitches, and it's swollen, and it's going to be black and blue, and it's probably going to be swollen shut, and he's our third baseman, and that's all I can tell you. I wish I could tell you more."
To accommodate the arrival of free-agent first baseman Prince Fielder, Cabrera has returned to third base this season after a four-year stint at first. He made an error two weeks ago on the first ball hit to him at third base in the exhibition season. He hasn't made another since, and though the Tigers insist they want him to make only the routine plays, he has made some above-average ones, too.
Pence's shot was ruled a hit by the official scorer.
The issue of Cabrera's return to third has subsided so much that when ESPN opened its telecast of Monday's game, the network displayed the Tigers' two headline questions as the second-base competition and the wonderment over what Justin Verlander would do to follow 2011.
The issue of whether Cabrera can play third base adequately didn't make ESPN's front page, so to speak.
Moments later, in the bottom of the first, ESPN had the pictures no one wants: an infielder bleeding from having taken a ball in the face.
Contact John Lowe: 313-223-4053 or jlowe@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @freeptigers.
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