Sunday, June 29, 2008

NEW YORK (AP) Hideki Matsui was placed on the 15-day disabled list Friday with a sore left knee, leaving the New York Yankees without one of their key sluggers.

Three-game vacation: Tampa Bay's Akinori Iwamura will begin a three-game suspension Saturday for his role in a brawl with the Boston Red Sox on June 5. AP PHOTO

The team also optioned reliever Ross Ohlendorf to Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre and recalled left-hander Kei Igawa from its top farm club.

Matsui missed the Yankees' 15-6 loss to the New York Mets in the opener of a rare two-stadium Subway Series doubleheader. He hit in the batting cage and ran in the outfield before the game, but the Yankees opted to place him on the DL, retroactive to Monday, after the loss.

Manager Joe Girardi said he hopes Matsui's balky knee won't keep him out longer than a couple of weeks.

"I hope it settles down," Girardi said.

Matsui had right knee surgery during the offseason, but it's his left knee that is hurting. He is batting .323 with seven homers and 34 RBIs in 69 games.

The Yankees spent $46 million to bring Igawa over from Japan before last season, but he has been a major bust.

After going 2-3 with a 6.25 ERA for the Yankees last year, he made one start for them this season and was tagged by Detroit for six runs and 11 hits in three innings on May 9.

PITTSBURGH, (AP) The Tampa Bay Rays aren't fine with Major League Baseball's decision Friday to not reduce second baseman Akinori Iwamura's three-game suspension for his role in a June 5 brawl in Boston.

The fight began when the Red Sox's Coco Crisp charged the mound after being hit by a James Shields pitch; Shields was suspended for six games, but missed only one start.

Crisp's seven-game suspension was cut to five games, but Iwamura lost an appeal to have his penalty cut to two games or one.

Iwamura will sit out the final two games of the Pirates series and the first game of the Red Sox series that begins Monday in Tropicana Field.

"I'm baffled by it," Rays manager Joe Maddon said. "I don't understand it at all.

"I thought it should have been reduced, it's way too severe . . . "

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