Hamilton Hospitalized, Leonys Martin Recalled

News broke just a few minutes ago that Josh Hamilton will be hospitalized for 12-24 hours with an intestinal virus and the team has recalled Leonys Martin who will bat ninth and play centerfield tonight.

To make room for Martin, the Rangers have placed Koji Uehara on the disabled list a day early meaning that another move will have to be done for tomorrow’s game to call up expected starting pitcher Justin Grimm. It may be as simple as Martin being sent back down or a pitcher (likely Yoshinori Tateyama) may go down to make room if Hamilton misses more than just tonight’s game, or it could be something completely different.

Martin is one of the Rangers top position player prospects and has been very good so far in Triple-A. Martin was 3/8 in limited big-league action last season and this season has .344/.417/.544 line which is very promising. He also has 5 homeruns and 22 RBI.

The fact that Martin was recalled means that they didn’t want to leave their bench empty with only Brandon Snyder, Alberto Gonzalez and Mike Napoli (assuming Craig Gentry would have started and Yorvit Torrealba is starting tonight). It is a little bit of a strange decision unless they really wanted to see what Martin could do or Ron Washington just wanted to keep flexibility of having two center fielders on the roster. Probably a little of both.

Martin had thumb surgery early this season and has been limited to 31 games this year.