TORONTO (AP) -Detroit Tigers designated hitter Gary Sheffield was held out of the lineup Sunday against the Blue Jays because of soreness in his surgically repaired right shoulder.
He will visit a doctor once the team returns to Detroit after a four-game series in Toronto that concludes Monday. Sheffield had surgery last October to repair a tear in his shoulder. He also had surgery on the same shoulder in 1995.
Sheffield believes scar tissue from the surgery is limiting his range of motion.
“I want to get it looked at,” Sheffield said. “I want to make sure I know what’s going on, how much scar tissue I really need to break up. … Obviously I can’t throw a baseball right now and can’t really reach across my body.”
He is batting .192 with one home run and two RBIs in 52 at-bats this season,
Second baseman Placido Polanco (stiff back) also sat out Sunday for the third time in the past four games. He is batting .148 with no home runs and four RBIs in 54 at-bats.
Carlos Guillen started at designated hitter for the Tigers, while Ryan Raburn made his second straight start in place of Polanco. Miguel Cabrera moved to first base and Brandon Inge got the start at third.
Sheffield, who will visit orthopedic surgeon Dr. Stephen Lamos, said he may have tried to come back too quickly.
“When you have surgery you’re supposed to break up all the scar tissue to be normal and I never got that opportunity,” he said. “I had surgery in November, I was in a splint until the end of December and I was on the baseball field in February.”
Sheffield played in 133 games for Detroit last season, but missed the first week of August with soreness in his shoulder and later spent two weeks on the disabled list. Sheffield is signed through 2009 and will earn $28 million over the next two seasons. He batted .265 with 25 home runs, 75 RBIs and 107 runs in 2007.
The nine-time All-Star has hit 481 homers in his career, which began in 1988 with Milwaukee. He also played for San Diego, Florida, the Los Angeles Dodgers, Atlanta and the New York Yankees before Detroit acquired him last year.
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