Missing games isn't something Matt Murton is used to doing. The 30-year-old outfielder has proven to be remarkably durable over the course of his career, so it was odd to not see him on the field for the first three games of the Hanshin Tigers' season because of a strained hamstring.

"Of course you want to be out there playing, but you have to try to look at the big picture," Murton said Thursday before the Tigers' game against the Tokyo Yakult Swallows. "So as much as I wanted to be out there playing, I was trying to look at it for 144 games. I would rather miss a couple than come back too soon and have something happen where I miss 30 or something like that."

Murton injured the hamstring during a spring game against the Chiba Lotte Marines March 17. Murton worked with the team's training staff, and worked out and played with the farm team before re-joining the ichi-gun squad for the series against Yakult.