Magglio Ordonez and Carlos Guillen were placed on Major League Baseball's 15-day disabled list on Sunday by the Detroit Tigers, who have lost one-third of their starting lineup in six days.
Outfielder Ordonez broke his right ankle sliding into home plate in the third inning of a 3-2 loss to Toronto while second baseman Guillen suffered a strained right calf in the fifth inning.
Last Monday, the Tigers lost third baseman Brandon Inge to a broken bone in his left hand when he was hit by a pitch, an injury expected to sideline him from six to eight weeks.
The setbacks come with the Tigers in third place in the American League Central division, only 2 1/2 games behind the pace-setting Chicago White Sox.
"We just have to go out and play. That's the bottom line," Tigers outfielder Johnny Damon said. "We just have to deal with it."
The Tigers promoted minor-league players to replace Ordonez and Guillen on the regular roster. They were two of the six top batters in Detroit's lineup with Inge batting seventh.
Ordonez is hitting .304 with 12 home runs and 59 runs batted in while Guillen is hitting .280 with five homers and 30 runs batted in. Inge is batting .263 with six homers and 40 runs batted in.
"There's going to be no excuses here. There's going to be a lot of energy," Tigers manager Jim Leyland said. "We will still be OK if we pitch.
"We're going to play our (rears) off and we're going to play hard. I'm going to have to manage better and we're going to have to do things differently. But that's OK."
Copyright 2010 AFP American Edition
