Quinn

HAINES CITY, Fla. -- Mark Quinn will probably open the Kansas City Royals' season on the disabled list due to a cracked rib he sustained while playfully kung fu fighting with his brother.

An MRI examination found that the outfielder has a fractured lower right rib, which will keep him sidelined four-to-six weeks. He is likely to miss the opener April 1 against Minnesota.

"Right now it's very questionable," Royals trainer Nick Swartz said Tuesday.

Quinn apparently broke the rib in San Diego during the week before he came to spring training.

"I was just kind of playing around with my brother, doing a little kung fu sparring," Quinn said. "There's limited space in my condo, and I was backing up, tripped and fell."

He jabbed his back into the edge of a wooden chair.

Quinn worked out a few days in spring training before the injured rib made it too painful to continue.

"The injury is approximately two weeks old," Swartz said. "That's good from the standpoint in he's got two weeks of healing. We obviously had an aggravation to the area from the last few days of his baseball activities. Does that set you back any? It does, but how much you really don't know."

Swartz said the earliest Quinn could return to on-the-field baseball activities would be in two weeks. Candidates to replace him include Dave McCarty, rookie Brandon Berger, who hit 40 home runs last year in the minor leagues and two in Kansas City, Dee Brown and Raul Ibanez. Brown and Ibanez swing left-handed.

"Quinn is right-handed, so you're looking to replace him with a right-handed bat, (but) we don't have to narrow it down to a right-hander," manager Tony Muser said.

"The important thing is how we react to what happened. Instead of 'why me' type situation, why us, we need to react in the best way possible."

The Royals could use a platoon of McCarty and Ibanez to fill in if Quinn is out.

"It's way too early to start narrowing it down to what you're going to do," Baird said.