Rays' Evan Longoria to Miss the Rest of the Season?

There are no certainties that Tampa Bay Rays third baseman Evan Longoria will return from his hamstring injury in time to play this season, tweets Buster Olney of ESPN.

There is a lot of concern in the Rays' organization about how long Evan Longoria will be out, with no guarantees of anything in 2012.

— Buster Olney (@Buster_ESPN) July 10, 2012

Longoria, who has been on the DL since May 1 with a partially torn left hamstring, was originally only expected to miss six to eight weeks. Since suffering a setback during a rehab game last month, however, that return date has been extended indefinitely.

In a recent interview with the Associated Press, Rays manager Joe Maddon said he had no timetable for Longoria's return to baseball activities.

"I have no idea when he's going to be able to play again," Maddon said before the Rays played the Cleveland Indians. "It's such a hard one to create conjecture with. If you wanted to bend to the negative side on this one you may have to as opposed to the positive side of it, meaning it will probably take more as opposed to less time to get him back on the field."

Longoria was hitting .329/.433/.561 in 23 games before he was sidelined. An AL-best 15-8 prior to Longoria's injury, the Rays have gone 30-33 since and now sit it third place.

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Should the Rays acquire a third baseman at the deadline just in case?

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