ARLINGTON, Texas -- Delmon Young's bat will be silent during the AL championship series.

If the Detroit Tigers can get to the World Series without him, they might get back the slugger who hit three homers in the AL division series.

Young is out of the AL championship series against the Texas Rangers because of an oblique injury. He reaggravated an earlier ailment against the New York Yankees and the Tigers left him off their roster for the best-of-seven series that began Saturday night.

Manager Jim Leyland said that even though an MRI "doesn't show anything real significant," the Tigers were taking no chances with Young.

"I learned a long time ago when the word oblique is mentioned, I get nervous. ... I've never seen an oblique all right in a day or two. It's never happened as long as I've been managing," Leyland said.

"We might have kept him on hoping for maybe Game 4 or 5 or something. But what happens is all of a sudden you used him and he couldn't go and you had to take him off, then he's not available for the next series," he said. "This way, not having him on the roster at the beginning of this series, if he would be ready and if we were fortunate to move on, he could be activated for the World Series."

Leyland said Young stiffened up after swinging during batting practice Friday.

Infielder Danny Worth took Young's spot on the roster while Ryan Raburn started in left field. Leyland also shuffled his batting order without his regular No. 3 hitter.

Young's injury was described as a mild strain when he left Game 5 of the AL division series against the Yankees on Thursday night.

The injury for Young is on the left side of his abdomen. He missed 19 games with the same injury earlier this season while with Minnesota.

"With Delmon out, it changes things," Leyland said. "It obviously hurts a little bit, because he's a right-handed hitter and we're going to see three left-handed pitchers plus they have good left-handed stuff in the bullpen."