Ruiz to DL, Howard day-to-day

Mike Adams, who hasn't pitched since May 10, was placed on the DL on Monday after battling back spasms for the last 10 days. He could return as soon as Sunday.

Carlos Ruiz suffered a Grade 2 hamstring strain on Sunday. He will be placed on the DL on Tuesday, to make room on the roster for Tyler Cloyd. Cloyd has to be activated to make his second start of the season.

Ruiz is expected to be out for 3-4 weeks, a big blow to an offense that relied heavily on the All-Star catcher last season.

And than there is Ryan Howard, who is out of the starting lineup for the second straight game with a sore left knee. Howard's status is the most interesting only because it's a little up in the air.

Howard, who is in the second year of a five-year, $125 million contract, had an MRI on Monday morning in Philly that revealed inflammation in his left knee. It's the same leg that cost Howard half of last season: he had surgery on his left Achilles in October of 2011.

Howard had a cortisone shot on Sunday.

"He's got some changes in his meniscus and his knee," head Phillies athletic trainer Scott Sheridan said of the MRI results. "And he's also got some inflammation in the knee that concerns us."

Howard is currently listed as day-to-day.

Here is more from Sheridan on Howard's status.

Q: When did mensicus thing start for Howard?

Sheridan: He's had some symptoms for a couple weeks, really nothing that was too bad. But then a couple of days ago he told us, you know this is starting to bark a little too much. He wanted to see what's going on. We've been treating him for a few days and felt like we needed to do a scan to see what exactly what was going on

Q: Is this related to his Achilles, maybe he was overcompensating, etc.?

Sheridan: That's the million dollar question right there. For me, it's like the old song: the foot bone is connected to the knee bone… To me the closed chain of the ankle relate to the knee, relate to the hip. They all play apart. So that's a reasonable question. Whether that's what's happened, we don't know.

Q: Is this something that he can play through, or will it nag him all season?

Sheridan: The goal is to make him better and be done with it. But I don't know if that's going to happen. We're going to do the treatment that we did and see how he responds to it. And then we'll have to make decisions from there as to what needs to be done beyond that.

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One other, "minor" injury note: lefthanded pitching prospect Adam Morgan was scratched from his start today at Triple-A Lehigh Valley.

"They shut him down for a little bit," assistant GM Scott Proefrock said. "He has a little bit of an issue with his shoulder."