Mike Scioscia is not expecting to see Josh Hamilton in a game for at least two weeks, although he remains hopeful that the slugger will be ready for opening day.
Hamilton suffered a strained left calf during baserunning drills on Tuesday, but Scioscia said he’s optimistic that even if Hamilton misses a couple weeks of spring training games he can be ready for the season.
“He’ll pick it right up,” Scioscia said this morning. “He got a lot of the fundamental work out of the way. His arm is in good shape. He got enough work on the offensive end to build up some of the things he needs to build up.”
So far, Scioscia isn’t ready to discuss the alternatives if Hamilton’s injury drags into the season. The simplest alternative would be to have J.B. Shuck play left field.
“We have depth to absorb some things, but we aren’t presented with that yet,” Scioscia said. “We can’t answer that till we get further along in the spring and see where we are.”
Meanwhile, C.J. Wilson was showing no ill affects a day after he was hit in the head by a line drive while throwing live batting practice.
Wilson said he’s planning to throw a bullpen on Thursday, and if that goes well, make his spring debut on Saturday, in the Angels’ second game.
Wilson said he knew he was not badly hurt immediately because he never lost consciousness.
“The doctor asked me how I felt I said, ‘Well, let’s see, I can still speak English, Spanish and Portuguese,’ so I was cool,” Wilson said. “I wasn’t really worried about it.”
Despite the scare, Wilson said he’s not going to wear one of the new protective pitcher’s caps because they are uncomfortable.
“They (stink),” he said. “They are terrible. Until they figure it out, no one is ever going to wear them. It would be easier to wear a first base coach’s batting helmet. That’s how cumbersome those (caps) are.”
