Rodriguez hopes he left just in time

Alex Rodriguez had a precautionary MRI Sunday night for his left oblique and lower- back soreness, and the results were good, Joe Girardi said. "So we'll see how he is Tuesday,'' the manager said.

Rodriguez pulled himself out of Saturday's game against the Rangers because the tightness he felt had intensified. "I'd like to think that I pulled myself out, hopefully, with the perfect timing,'' said Rodriguez, who believes he suffered the injury while swinging and aggravated it when he made a diving grab on a ground ball in the second inning. "I felt that if I went out there and took a violent swing, perhaps I could have put myself at risk for a couple weeks."

The Yankees hope to have him in the lineup Tuesday night in Toronto, but Rodriguez said that depends on how he responds to ice, heat, whirlpool and ultrasound treatments.

Girardi: Hughes OK

Ears perked up as soon as Girardi mentioned Phil Hughes and anti-inflammatory drugs, but the manager denied Hughes is injured. "You could look at every pitcher's arm and see some inflammation. That's the bottom line," he said. "So you kind of do that with trying to build up the arm strength and getting him back and see what happens."

The Yankees were "pretty close" to shipping Hughes to Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes Barre, Girardi said, but "we felt that it would be better to not put him in game conditions because we didn't think that he could necessarily get the work that he needed to build up physically."

Extra bases

A.J. Burnett and Bartolo Colon will start Tuesday and Wednesday, but Girardi is unsure who will follow . . . Kevin Millwood pitched a complete game in Double-A Trenton's 8-0 win over Harrisburg.