Kansas City placed OF-L Dee Brown on the disabled list yesterday. Brown evidently has been experiencing a nagging pain in the area of his ribcage, so the Royals want him to rest until it subsides. The injury does not seem to be much more than incidental soreness related to the daily grind and his previous muscle spasms, so Brown anticipates returning around the time he is first eligible to leave the disabled list on August 25th. I suspect Kansas City will wait until after rosters expand in September before activating the 26-year-old from the DL.

The Royals called up OF-L Aaron Guiel to replace Brown on the roster. Guiel needed more than two months for his vision to return to normal following surgery to correct blurred vision in his left eye in late May. Consequently, he was not yet ready to return when his rehab assignment expired at the end of July, so Kansas City activated him from the disabled list on July 17th and sent him to AA, allowing him to continue to participate in baseball activities while waiting for his vision to stabilize. Guiel soon advanced to AAA where he thought he would have to remain until rosters expanded in September. However, the 31-year-old's vision cleared up a couple of weeks ago, and he re-established his plate discipline at AAA, so he was ready to return to the majors when Brown's trip to the DL created an opening.

1B/OF-L Matt Stairs hit the disabled list on August 7th. Stairs strained his left oblique while swinging during batting practice on the 6th. He planned to rest for a week before attempting to resume baseball activities, and there has been no update on that timetable. Since his MRI did not reveal a tear, the 36-year-old hopes to rejoin the team almost as soon as he is eligible to leave the DL on August 22nd, however he could be out a full month.