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Phillies hope Ibanez injury not long-term

"THE MOST unsettling part for the Phillies had to be the uncertainty when they waited for the results of an MRI that was scheduled to be conducted late yesterday evening. As of the end of the team's 8-7 loss to the Blue Jays, the only definite about the ailing left groin of Raul Ibanez was that it would sideline the star leftfielder for at least the 15 days he is required to be on the disabled list.Beyond that?"I'm always pretty confident that it can be fixed," said Ibanez, who is hitting .312 with 22 home runs and 59 RBI. "So I think it will be fixed. That's me talking."Hopeful, rather than confident, is the word that best fit the rhetoric of Phillies general manager Ruben Amaro Jr. when he briefed reporters on the injury yesterday morning.Ibanez is eligible to return on July 3."We'll find out as he goes through his rehab and does the things he needs to do to get it calmed down," Amaro said. "We'll monitor him. We'll monitor him every day and see how he feels and hopefully he'll heal properly and be ready in 15 days. That's the plan, that'd be great, but I don't know if that's going to happen."Ibanez had been suffering from pain in the groin since April, but only recently did it affect his play. He missed Sunday's game with what the team described as a sore Achilles' that resulted from ill-fitting cleats. But Amaro said yesterday that Ibanez was suffering from a sore groin and a sore Achilles', the latter of which was a minor condition that has cleared up.Ibanez returned to the field for the start of the three-game series against the Blue Jays, but was noticeably hampered in the field and on the basepaths.He was 0-for-8 in the first two games of the series, and was 16-for-63 since the beginning of a seven-game West Coast road trip earlier this month, when he says the injury started to worsen."Everything was starting to get affected," he said. "I wasn't helping the team. It was probably the right thing to do at the right time."Ibanez was hesitant at first to go on the disabled list. But Amaro and the Phillies' medical staff told him that he risked doing serious damage and missing a "very, very long time" if he continued to play on the injury."


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