BASEBALL DAILY REPORT : ANGELS : Rodgers Will Take Big Step Thursday

Angel Manager Buck Rodgers has designated Thursday as the day he will try to put weight on his left knee for the first time since he fractured his knee, right wrist and two ribs and shattered his right elbow in the team’s May 21 bus accident.

Rodgers has been confined to a wheelchair since undergoing five hours of surgery on his elbow and a one-hour procedure on his knee May 24. He has been recuperating at his Yorba Linda home.

“They’re going to take some more X-rays and Dr. (Lewis) Yocum is going to read them to see if the leg has healed sufficiently to give me permission to walk,” said Rodgers, who hopes to return to the dugout July 16. “I’m really itching to get up, that’s for sure.

His elbow, however, is healing far more slowly. Plates, wires and screws were inserted to reassemble the joint, which was crushed when the bus fell onto its side and landed in a grove of trees along the New Jersey Turnpike.

John Orton didn’t play Tuesday because of an inflamed right shoulder. Trainer Ned Bergert said it’s not related to the rotator cuff ailment that idled Orton during spring training, but Orton is unlikely to play again before the All-Star break. “As we get closer to Sunday, it would be prudent to not use him at all,” interim Manager John Wathan said.

Mike Fitzgerald, who replaced Orton Tuesday, went two for two with a double, his first extra-base hit since he homered on May 24.

The benching of Indian outfielder Albert Belle lasted one game. Disciplined by Manager Mike Hargrove for what Hargrove considered a lackadaisical effort in playing a line drive hit by Oakland’s Harold Baines Sunday, Belle sat out Monday’s game and was fined a reported $400. He was back Tuesday for two reasons: outfielders Kenny Lofton (strained left elbow) and Thomas Howard (death in the family) were unavailable and because Belle had a .412 career average against Chuck Finley. He fattened that average to .429 with an RBI single in the first inning and another single in the fifth, but was booed each time he came to bat.