"B.J. Upton said he did not have the wind knocked out of him, but you can imagine Joe Maddon and Andrew Friedman held their breath when Upton was drilled on the left side of his rib cage Wednesday by a 90-plus fastball delivered by 6-foot-8 Adam Russell during the Tampa Bay Rays' live batting practice.

Upton dropped like a rock in the batter's box, while Friedman broke off a conversation he was having near the backstop and Maddon hurried to Upton's side.

"He hit me in the right spot to make it hurt," Upton said. "It will be a couple of days before it's back to normal, but it definitely could have been a lot worse. It's nothing."

Upton walked off the field and eventually participated in the portion of batting practice thrown by the Rays' coaching staff. In between, he hugged it out with Russell.

"One got away and I feel terrible about it," said Russell, who came to the Rays from the Padres in the Jason Bartlett trade. "Nobody feels worse than me."

Russell, who was facing his final batter of his day, tried to get a fastball over the inside part of the plate.

"I wasn't scared to throw the pitch," he said. "You don't want to hurt a teammate, that's the bottom line. We need him out there."

Upton said it wasn't the first time he was hit during live BP. Upton recalled being hit twice in the same session by Bob Wells in 2003.

"I don't like getting hit at all," he said. "That's why I stopped playing football."

Upton said he doesn't expect to be limited today by what will be sore ribs. Neither does Maddon.

"I saw him running around afterward, he said he was fine," Maddon said. "I'm certain he's going to be sore. He's swinging the bat so good right now. I'm thinking here's this guy ready to roll and all of a sudden there's a setback. But it looks like he will be OK.""