Teixeira blames Stadium warning track for Berkman's fall
ARLINGTON, Texas - The kind of tumble Lance Berkman took in foul ground during Game 5 shouldn't happen again, the man he replaced at first base said. "That warning track around our stadium is very dangerous," Mark Teixeira said Thursday of the synthetic surface. "It's hard, it's basically concrete with sand on top. It needs to be fixed."
Berkman slipped running after a pop-up, fell hard on his back and slid feet-first into the wall. Fortunately, he didn't hit his head, but he stayed down for a minute and later was administered smelling salts. He changed from plastic cleats to metal spikes and finished the game.
Berkman didn't disagree with Teixeira, but he wasn't as blunt. "It's slick, it's hard," Berkman said. "I don't have much experience with it, but most warning tracks are not that way."
Berkman, though sore from his fall, took batting practice Thursday and Joe Girardi said he didn't anticipate his being limited in any way tonight.
Teixeira, who suffered a Grade 2 hamstring strain in Game 4 and is out for the rest of the postseason, said he won't be able to run for six to eight weeks. "I usually take about a month off after the season," he said. "So this next month will kind of be a rehab month for me. So instead of just totally taking off, it'll be strengthening the hamstring and getting it loose and making sure it's healed. I don't usually run until probably six to eight weeks into my offseason anyway, so that works out."
Teixeira said he played with a bone bruise in his right thumb, a broken right pinkie toe in September and swelling in his left knee the last couple of weeks.
Extra bases
AL MVP candidate Robinson Cano is 8-for-19, including four homers, and Josh Hamilton is 6-for-19, with four homers and five walks . . . The team with a 3-2 lead heading into LCS Game 6 has won the series 20 of 29 times . . . Kerry Wood became only the second pitcher in LCS history to pick off two runners when he got Elvis Andrus in Game 5, joining Steve Carlton (Phillies) in 1983 and Kenny Rogers (Mets) in 1999 . . . Righthander Andrew Shive, who played with Class A Staten Island, and infielder Matt Cusick, who spent 59 games with Double-A Trenton and 29 games with Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, were sent to the Indians as the players to be named in the Wood deal..
With Jim Baumbach
