Red Sox third baseman Mike Lowell made a diving first-inning stop of this ball, but he paid a price.

The Providence Journal / Bob Breidenbach

BOSTON — Third baseman Mike Lowell left last night’s game in the bottom of the second inning, suffering from a sprained left thumb.

He underwent x-rays at the ballpark, which showed no broken bones. Lowell was listed as day-to-day.

Lowell made a diving backhand stop of a grounder by Ivan Rodriguez, the first batter of the game, and after throwing Rodriguez out at first, could be seen repeatedly shaking his thumb.

“I just rolled over and felt the hand separate,” said Lowell after the Sox’ 7-2 loss to the Tigers. “It hurt right away.”

He took the field in the second inning, too, and made a play on a grounder from Edgar Renteria without incident. But when it came time for his first at-bat, he was replaced by Sean Casey. In the top of the third, Casey took over at first with Kevin Youkilis moving across the diamond to replace Lowell at third.

“Between innings,” said Lowell, “I took some swings off the tee. It hurt. In the second inning, I got a routine ground ball and it really hurt.”

“We put him in a splint and tried to calm it down,” said manager Terry Francona. “We’ll know a whole lot more [this] morning, depending on how he shows up. He was pretty tender. For him to come out of a game, you know he was hurting.”

Last year, Lowell missed a handful of games in mid-June after suffering a similar injury earlier in the same month.

“It’s the same area,” said Lowell, comparing the setbacks. “I don’t know if it’s the same ligament. But it flared up a lot faster tonight. [The last time], I played the rest of the game and the next day it swelled up. This time, it got swollen faster. I don’t know if that’s good or bad.”

“A guy like Mike Lowell, we’re certainly going to listen to how he feels,” said Francona. “Hopefully, we’ll know a lot more [today].”

Casey, pressed into duty on short notice, delivered a single in his first at-bat, then doubled the following inning.

“That’s the role I signed up for,” he said. “That was a shot of adrenaline, I tell you that. One minute, you’re eating sunflower seeds. The next thing, you know, you’re hitting.”

Around the bases

As part of the start of a series of celebrations, the Red Sox labeled last night Dominican Heritage Night and the Dominican national anthem was played….Before the game, Youkilis, the Red Sox player representative, presented the Players Choice Award to Dustin Pedroia as the American League’s Outstanding Rookie of 2007… The Red Sox’ victory Tuesday was their 1,000th against the Tigers in franchise history. The Sox have also won more than a thousand against the St. Louis Browns/Baltimore Orioles and the Philadelphia/Kansas City/Oakland A’s… The Sox recorded two shutouts in the first eight games, the earliest they’ve posted two shutouts in a season since 2001, when the Sox notched two in the first six… Alex Cora remains perfect on the season. He pinch-hit for Julio Lugo in the ninth and singled on the first pitch and is 3-for-3… Lugo was thrown out stealing in the fourth, the first time he’d been caught since Aug. 24 of last season. Last year, he wasn’t thrown out stealing until June 30, his 72nd game of the season. Lugo recorded seven assists at short, following his nightmarish weekend in Toronto, when he committed four errors, including three in the road trip finale Sunday…With a single in the ninth inning, J.D. Drew extended his hitting streak to six games and is hitting .364 (8-for-22).

Journal sports writer Steven Krasner contributed to this report

smcadam@projo.com