Major League Baseball

Alex Avila's latest absence is over

Published Sep. 22, 2014 6:17 p.m. ET

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DETROIT -- It took a little longer than the Tigers might have wanted, but Alex Avila is back from his latest brain injury.

Due to the complications of clearing a player to return from a concussion, Tigers trainer Kevin Rand had told the media that Avila wouldn't be able to play until Tuesday. However, when Brad Ausmus finally released the lineup 45 minutes before Monday's first pitch, Avila was catching and hitting seventh.

Tigers trainer Kevin Rand said Monday afternoon that Avila, who hasn't played since Sept. 14, has been symptom free since Friday, and passed a series of tests over the weekend in Kansas City.

"He's done baseball-specific activities the last two days -- he hit soft toss, he hit off the tee and he hit BP," Rand said. "He caught in the bullpen on Sunday before Anibal (Sanchez) threw his simulated game, and he tracked pitches during the simulated game. He's had no return of symptoms in that time."

If Avila had any other injury, he would have been in tonight's lineup against the White Sox without any question. With baseball's heightened awareness of brain injuries, however, it was a little more complicated.

"When you have a concussion situation, you have certain steps and protocols," Rand said. "You have to get him through baseball-specific activities and make sure he stays symptom free, which is where we are at with him, and then you have to repeat his impact testing, which is a concussion-testing protocol, and where we have a baseline on him. 

"Then we have to do a SCAT3, which is another concussion assessment."

Once Avila passed those tests, Rand had to submit all of the paperwork to MLB, which had to approve his return to the lineup.

"We have to do that regardless of whether he goes on the disabled list or not," Rand explained. "As soon as we put that paperwork into play, and we'll probably submit all of it later today, they review it, and if they are comfortable with it, we get a response back fairly quickly."

Apparently, it was quickly enough that between the time Rand spoke with the media and the lineup was submitted 90 minutes later, Avila ended up back on the field.

***Tigers Live 9.22.14 -- If multimedia does not appear right away, please click refresh***

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