As part of a flurry of transactions, the Red Sox placed third baseman Kevin Youkilis on the 15-day disabled list due to a lower back injury. The stint will be retroactive to April 29.
Youkilis said that he is showing significant improvement on Wednesday after being virtually unable to do anything but stand in the on-deck circle as a decoy pinch-hitter on Tuesday. He said that the condition was one that "has been happening for a little bit of time now. Basically, what we've done, the last couple days have been bad. Trying to get through it. I've made great strides from yesterday to today. Things are going well, but they want to get a step ahead of it and try to get me as healthy as possible."
Youkilis said that he needed at least three or four additional days of no baseball activity, which helped lead to the decision to place him on the disabled list and replace Youkilis on the roster with Will Middlebrooks, who will bat eighth and play third in his major league debut on Wednesday. That said, Youkilis said he does not foresee a prolonged health concern.
"The good thing is they know what's going on. It's not a surgery or a major injury or something like that," said Youkilis. "It's just an irritable thing that popped up about a week ago. It's something that hadn't gotten better, but now I think we've gotten to the bottom where it wasn't feeling good at all and now it's kind of making strides and kind of moving up."
In 18 games this year, Youkilis is hitting .219 with a .292 OBP, .344 slugging mark and .635 OPS.
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