SAN DIEGO (AP) -Padres left fielder Milton Bradley left Friday night’s game against the San Francisco Giants because of a strained right hamstring – yet more bad luck for the injury-plagued Bradley.
The switch-hitting Bradley, who already has four stints on the disabled list this season in his contract year, was replaced by Scott Hairston in the top of the sixth inning. Manager Bud Black said Bradley tweaked a hamstring injury that happened Thursday.
Hairston wound up hitting two home runs in the Padres’ 4-3, 10-inning victory.
Bradley said he felt tightness inside his right leg when Dave Roberts doubled to left in the third.
“Buddy thought I wasn’t running real well,” Bradley said. “It’s definitely frustrating. My whole career I’ve had to deal with stuff like this.”
He hopes to be back on the field in a couple of days.
“He felt good enough to play today, but after watching him I didn’t feel comfortable letting him go on,” Black said. “We can’t let this linger or get worse.”
Before the game, Bradley praised the Padres’ training staff for working hard to keep him healthy since he left the Oakland Athletics in late June.
Bradley spent three stints on the DL with Oakland, and the A’s designated him for assignment June 21. Bradley had been frustrated that the team waited two extra days to activate him because of uncertainty about third baseman Eric Chavez’s health.
The Padres acquired him in a June 29 trade with the A’s, along with cash, in exchange for minor league pitcher Andrew Brown. Bradley joined San Diego two days later in Los Angeles, but was placed on the 15-day disabled list because of a strained left oblique.
He said he’d been receiving treatment on the oblique while with Oakland, but the A’s didn’t want the injury known because they were hoping to trade him.
“I had an idea I was going to get traded before the deadline,” he said. “I was making $4 million.”
Bradley, who agreed to a one-year, $4 million deal with Oakland in the offseason, first was shelved this year from April 23 to May 10 with a strained left hamstring. He went on the DL a second time May 15-29 when the hamstring flared up again, before being sidelined a third time June 3 with a calf injury.
He hasn’t been able to stay on the field in recent years either.
He’s missed 51 games in all for the A’s with the injuries and had had five stints on the disabled list in his two seasons with Oakland.
He never wanted to rush back, but felt like his bosses in the Bay Area were pushing him to do so.
“Pretty much the last two years I’ve been hurt and collecting a check,” Bradley said. “You feel the pressure. … It was a tough go.”
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AP Sports Writer Beth Harris contributed to this story.
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