Healing Burroughs not quite prepared to return

By: BRIAN HIRO - Staff Writer | Monday, May 30, 2005 10:34 PM PDT ∞

SAN DIEGO ---- Padres third baseman Sean Burroughs missed his fifth consecutive game Monday and remains a few days away from being healthy enough to play.

"He's coming along a little slower than we had thought," Padres manager Bruce Bochy said.

Even when Burroughs recovers from a strained left quadriceps, his place in the lineup is not assured.

Third base has been manned by Geoff Blum, who was 6-for-17 (.353) with five runs, three RBIs and two doubles in his first four games starting for Burroughs. By contrast, Burroughs has only one double in 143 at-bats this season and is batting just .216 in May, a month when almost every other Padre has been consistently productive.

"Right now I would not change the lineup," Bochy said. "But we're going to need (Burroughs) healthy because we're one (infielder) short right now, and it does take away from what we can do. We really have no experienced infielder on the bench."

Burroughs originally tweaked his left hamstring early this month, an injury that forced him to sit out the finale of a series in St. Louis on May 8. He pushed himself back on to the field, however, and overcompensating for the hamstring soreness caused the quad strain.

"He kept saying, 'I'm fine, I can play,' and we kept putting him out there," Padres trainer Todd Hutcheson said. "The team was playing well, and he was playing great defensively. Sometimes if a guy is 80 percent, you'd just as soon have him out there."

Burroughs tested his quad with some running each of the past two days and reported feeling better on Monday. Hutcheson said Burroughs could come off the bench in a pinch.

"But we're not going to let him start a game unless we think the soreness has gone down to where he won't reinjure it," he said.

What to do?

Padres pitcher Andy Ashby has reached a crossroad in his comeback from two elbow surgeries in the past two years.

The options appear to be these: He can go under the knife again, or he can retire.

"He's just trying to make a decision on what he wants to do," Hutcheson said.

Ashby was shut down last week because of persistent pain in his right elbow, most recently from a 30-pitch session at the Padres' complex in Peoria, Ariz.

"He wanted to push through and see if he could throw with this," Hutcheson said. "But from what we were seeing, it didn't make sense to let him keep gutting it out."

The 37-year-old Ashby had Tommy John surgery in October 2003 and a clean-up procedure last fall.

Aki adjusts

Akinori Otsuka is hoping an inch of space makes a world of difference in his pitching.

The Padres' reliever worked before Monday's game on raising his hands by an inch when he brings them to a set position during his delivery.

As Otsuka explained it, the subtle adjustment is as much mental as physical, helping him to better visualize drawing his arm back and throwing to the plate at a more downward angle.

"It's not something you can see," Otsuka said through an interpreter. "It's just something I mentally feel."

Otsuka pitched 1 2/3 innings of scoreless relief Monday night, marking his first appearance since he temporarily lost his setup role with consecutive bad outings in Phoenix last week.