DETROIT — Initially, Luke Putkonen was elated when he heard the words “no surgery” from noted orthopedic surgeon Dr. James Andrews, the same guy who performed his first Tommy John surgery before his freshman year at North Carolina.

It meant he would not need another Tommy John surgery.

But he still ended up going on Andrews’ operating table three weeks later, having arthroscopic surgery Thursday in Pensacola, Fla., to remove a bone spur (posterior osteophyte) from his right elbow.

“Hopefully that’ll take care of his issues,” said Detroit Tigers head trainer Kevin Rand, who said that Andrews smoothed the area out. “It’s a bony growth. It’s not a bone chip.”

Putkonent will be re-examined after six-to-eight weeks of rest and rehabilitation, but there is no timetable set for his return to the Tigers.

He was placed on the 15-day disabled list on April 19 with inflammation in his throwing elbow. The training staff thought they’d gotten the inflammation cleared up, and had him make three rehabilitation appearances in the minors in early May, before it flared back up again. The team sought and received a second opinion from Andrews late last month.

“We knew he had the osteophytes when we did the MRI. Those are common. You can have a lot of guys that’ll have those type of bony type changes in their elbow from pitching,” Rand said. “The question is, are you going to be able to get that quiet where you can go through and have no issues with it, and obviously he wasn’t able to.”

DETROIT — More than 40 days ago, the Detroit Tigers inked a deal with former big-league closer Joel Hanrahan, in the hopes that he could eventually help the bullpen.

Everyone involved knew it would be a ‘later’ proposition, rather than sooner.

The 32-year-old Hanrahan, who was just two weeks shy of the one-year anniversary after Tommy John surgery when he signed with the Tigers, is nearly ready to take the next step in his rehabilitation, and face live hitters.

“Joel’s been throwing bullpens and once we feel comfortable his next step will be to face hitters in live BP (batting practice) sessions,” Tigers head trainer Kevin Rand said.

Hanrahan had a small hitch in his rehabilitation, when the Tigers slowed his progression, but he appears to be past that now.

“He’s been throwing bullpens fairly consistently for the past couple weeks. We had shut him down for a short period of time to kind of build up arm strength . We took him through a long toss progression and now we’ve taken him back through bullpens,” Rand said. “We’re hoping at this point that we can kind of get over the hump in the near future as throwing to some live hitters. He’s close to live hitters at this point.”

DETROIT — Detroit Tigers outfielder Andy Dirks took his first live batting practice swings on Friday, according to manager Brad Ausmus, who expected Dirks to receive a rehab assignment within the next week to 10 days.

“Probably, unless there’s some sort of setback,” Ausmus said. “I don’t have a date, not in terms of a rehab. I’m sure it’ll be within the next week to 10 days. But there’s no date, as of now.”

Head trainer Kevin Rand said Dirks took some live swings in an intrasquad game in Lakeland, Fla., and will play in a couple more intrasquad games.

Even if Dirks requires the maximum 10 days before getting his assignment, and stays the full 20 days in the minors allowed on a rehab assignment, that would put him in Detroit right at the All-Star break.

Dirks had microdiscectomy on March 10, during spring training, and was expected to miss 12 weeks. He began light baseball activities on May 10, then graduated to taking full swings two weeks later.

“Yeah, I talked to Dirks actually today. He said he’s feeling better,” Ausmus said. “Overall, he’s making progress like he’s on schedule, he’s making progress like he’s supposed to.”

DETROIT — "Full speed" for Miguel Cabrera is always a relative term.

Still the Detroit Tigers' slugger did not appear to be running at full speed on a fourth-inning double and, after a two-out single in the sixth, came out of the game.

Head trainer Kevin Rand checked on Cabrera at first base, then the two went back to the dugout. Don Kelly came in as the pinch runner.

The official diagnosis is left hamstring tightness. He is day-to-day.

Cabrera had offseason surgery to repair core muscle damage that slowed him for much of the second half of last season.

Cabrera has not missed a start this season, but has left three games early. All were either for precautionary reasons, or in a blowout loss. The last time Cabrera left a game early was in the 12-4 loss to the Rangers on May 25, again with hamstring cramp.

DETROIT — Miguel Cabrera (hamstring cramp) and Joba Chamberlain (right ankle contusion) both left Sunday’s game early, a half-inning apart, and are day-to-day.

In the seventh inning of a 10-run game, Cabrera singled through the left side. On a foul ball by Don Kelly, Cabrera appeared to pull up lame, and hobbled almost all the way to second base.

Trainer Kevin Rand and manager Brad Ausmus immediately came out to check on him, and replaced him with pinch runner Bryan Holaday.

“He said he could stay in. If this was Sept. 19, and this was an important game, and we weren’t down by 10, it would’ve been a different story,” Ausmus said.

“There was no reason to take a risk. Just get him out of there.”

Cabrera is coming off surgery in the offseason to repair a core muscle injury.

Chamberlain got kicked in the foot trying to cover the bag at first base on an infield hit by Rougned Odor. Rand and Ausmus went out to check on him, but left him in, then pulled him after he walked Shin-Soo Choo.

Ausmus said the concern level about Chamberlain was low, but had not yet spoken with Cabrera or Rand.

Cabrera said it was just a cramp, and he already felt better, after the game.

Jim Leyland was on pins and needles, like a kid before Christmas.

Well, OK, not really, but the veteran manager WAS eagerly anticipating the report from Miguel Cabrera's medical evaluation on Tuesday morning, excited to get the good news that the reigning American League batting champ could return to the field.

Cabrera had been intentionally idled for a week after a grounder took a wicked hop and hit him in the face, opening a gash that required eight stitches, and causing a small fracture in the orbital bone in his right cheek.

"Tomorrow’s a big day. A big day. A huge day," Leyland said after Monday afternoon's game. "I’ll be anxiously awaiting to hear about that, I can tell you that. ... I know he feels good. You know he looks good. By his own admission, he’s not having any trouble seeing. His eyesight is perfect. So, it’s just in the hands of the medical people. What’s there that we don’t know about, the average people? We just don’t know."

The Tigers told reporters that Cabrera would work on conditioning on Tuesday, then likely resume baseball activities on Wednesday. Head trainer Kevin Rand would not give reporters a timetable on Cabrera's return to the field however.

"Still not sure when Cabrera will play but it will be soon — and that makes me feel real good," Leyland was quoted by the Detroit News' Tom Gage.

Regardless, Cabrera thinks he'll be ready for next week's season opener.

"I think so," he said Monday. "I’ll be ready. Don’t worry."

Apparently, Miguel Cabrera is feeling no ill effects of the small fracture in his right cheek suffered earlier this week, thanks to a wicked hop on a grounder by the Phillies’ Hunter Pence.

“I saw a picture of him yesterday on Kevin’s phone. He looks great. Beautiful. Looks great. No pain. Swelling’s going down. A little discolored there yet. But we’re going to take all precautions,” Leyland said of a picture shown to him by trainer Kevin Rand. “But he feels good. He wanted to come (to Bradenton) today. He told Dave (Dombrowski, the GM) he was ready to come play today, but obviously we’re not doing that.”

While it’s good news, it certainly won’t budge the Tigers from their timetable. The initial diagnosis included instructions for Cabrera to be held out of all activities for a week, before being re-evaluated.

Leyland cautioned against reading too much into Cabrera’s enthusiasm.

“It means just what it means: That he’s going to sit quiet for a week, and then be re-evaluated. That’s all that means,” the skipper said.

With every injury, there's a worst-case scenario.

Unfortunately, for Joel Zumaya, that scenario has come to pass more often than not. And it's again, as he's now opted to have surgery next week that will likely end his career as a Detroit Tiger.

When Dr. James Andrews last examined Zumaya's surgically repaired elbow, seeking an answer to the inexplicable soreness the oft-injured relief pitcher experienced every time he tried to throw, he found no answers. Nothing showed on the MRI or X-rays, nor were there any nerve issues.

Andrews gave two options: A wait-and-see approach of six more weeks of rehabilitation, or exploratory surgery to attempt to pinpoint the elusive cause of the pain.

At the time, Tigers head trainer Kevin Rand said with the surgery option, the timetable "was not favorable for him to pitch in 2011."

Zumaya chose rehab again, but two weeks into the six prescribed, he's changed his mind. He'll have surgery on May 10.

The oft-injured reliever has been through the process before — from the torn ligament in his finger, to shoulder surgery, to the most recent, surgery to fix a broken bone (the olecranon) in his elbow — each time bringing the possibility of being his last chance.

But he signed just a one-year contract with the Tigers in the offseason, and it's unlikely they — or any team — will sign him again until he proves he can avoid injury.

The Tigers may have hamstrung themselves a bit by their loyalty to the popular player, going into the season with inconsistent youngster Ryan Perry as the only truly viable alternative to Zumaya as the seventh-inning specialist. That role has been one of the most glaring problems in a bullpen that has been, unfortunately, rife with them.

If you were waiting for Joel Zumaya to don his Superman cape and swoop to the rescue of the Tigers’ struggling bullpen, don’t hold your breath.

Then again, if you were actually expecting that to happen, it begs the question where you’ve been for the last four years.

The Tigers moved the star-crossed reliever from the 15-day disabled list to the 60-day DL on Monday, meaning that he’ll not be eligible to return to the team until at least the end of May.

Tigers trainer Kevin Rand said last week that Zumaya was expected to be reexamined early this week by noted orthopedic surgeon Dr. James Andrews in Florida after experiencing “radiating pain” in his throwing arm during his first throwing session a few days earlier.

Monday’s news means that examination — which was to include more X-Rays and MRIs, along with an added test, an EMG, to check nerve conductivity — did not go well, other than to rule out nerve-related issues.

“Nothing really jumped out at us any more than what we had already determined,” Rand told reporters in Seattle Monday. “The (elbow) bone has healed up. It’s kind of a puzzle. Nobody can point and say, ‘That’s why he has pain. That’s the cause.’ ”

The options from here — which will be discussed with Andrews and the team’s medical staff — are to continue the rehab program, which could last six more weeks and still yield no progress, or undergo a diagnostic arthroscopic procedure, which might pinpoint the issue.

It’s the latest setback in Zumaya’s halting recovery from the elbow surgery that ended his 2010 season. The right-handed fireballer was placed on the 15-day DL on March 22nd, after just one spring training appearance, with inflammation in his elbow.

He had surgery on the elbow in mid-July, inserting a pin in his right elbow to repair a fracture of the olecranon.

That, however, is just the latest injury in a litany of mishaps that have befallen him since his sensational rookie campaign in 2006. After 62 appearances in the Tigers’ run to the World Series that season, Zumaya has not made more than 31 appearances in a season since, having suffered through a ruptured tendon on the middle finger of his throwing hand, a dislocation of the AC joint in his throwing shoulder, followed by a stress fracture in the same shoulder.

Having seen him fight through injuries before, the Tigers brought Zumaya back on a one-year, $1.4 million contract in the offseason, avoiding arbitration.