LAKELAND, Fla. -- There has been a lot of talk this spring about keeping Jose Iglesias healthy, and for good reason.
Iglesias missed the entire 2014 season with bilateral tibial stress fractures.
By all accounts, Iglesias is fine.
The doctors cleared him for full activity, he's been able to participate in everything and spring training appears to be going well.
But there is uncertainty.
So Tigers manager Brad Ausmus is not taking any undue risks, certainly not this early in the spring.
"He is gonna have an extremely light day today, not because of any complaint but because I want him to have a light day," Ausmus said. "You may not even see him on the field, I told him he could hit in the cage. I didn't want him running, you might see him throw a little bit just to loosen up his shoulder. I don't want to put too much on him too early."
Iglesias played against Florida Southern, skipped the Grapefruit League opener against the Baltimore Orioles and then played Wednesday in Sarasota against the Orioles.
When Iglesias came out of the game Wednesday, Ausmus told him Thursday would be a light day.
"(Head athletic trainer) Kevin Rand and I have spoken about Iglesias," Ausmus said. "A little bit of it is me being cautious but from a broad perspective I've talked to Kevin about it, in terms of when we should start playing him back-to-back games, etc. We probably could start him back-to-back games, maybe play short-DH, then a few days later we could go short-short."
Iglesias has not reported any problems at all, which is the way Ausmus wants to keep it.
"He said he felt fine yesterday, he ran well on two ground balls," Ausmus said. "He didn't really get much action at short. So far so good, but again I don't want excess playing time early in spring training to be the cause of any return of the issues he had last year."
Iglesias will return to the lineup Friday when the team travels to play the New York Mets in Port St. Lucie.
"I might go four tomorrow, depending on if the first three go real long or he's standing out there for a long period of time," Ausmus said. "But if it's normal pace I try to stretch him out to four innings. He'd probably be off Saturday and then ideally if everything goes well he and (Ian) Kinsler will play together Sunday, here. 'Cause they also need to play together."
CESPEDES LATE SCRATCH THURSDAY
The Tigers had a late lineup change.
The Tigers announced that left fielder Yoenis Cespedes was scratched from Thursday's game against the Atlanta Braves with lower back tightness.
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COMPLETE TIGERS SPRING TRAINING 2015 COVERAGE
