Tigers 3B Miguel Cabrera has groin tear, may need surgery

Detroit Tigers slugger Miguel Cabrera has a groin tear that could require surgery. (Jamie Squire/Getty Images)

There is a reason why Detroit Tigers third baseman Miguel Cabrera was limping around for the latter part of the season.

Cabrera was dealing with a groin tear, Tigers team president/general manager Dave Dombrowski said Monday.

Even though, Cabrera, who won the Triple Crown and the AL Most Valuable Player award last season, struggled during the last month of this season, he still led the majors in batting average, slugging, and OPS.

He also hit 44 home runs and drove in 137 runs.

"He has a groin [injury], they say Grade 2, Grade 3, which means there's some tearing of fibers in that area," Dombrowski said, via MLB.com. "It was not going to heal with rest, we were assured of that. When he had the abdominal strain, he played the month of August and was Player of the Month, even though it continued to restrict him."

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Dombrowski said that Cabrera did not want to be shut down as the Tigers were in the thick of the playoff race.

"The reason he did not go see Dr. Meyers earlier in the process is Miguel did not want to go," Dombrowski said. "I think he anticipated hearing what he was going to hear and he chose not to do that, despite every encouragement he could possibly have. He wanted to keep playing. "He felt that he was going to be shut down, and in fact we had to assure him when he went to see Dr. Meyers, when we flew him up there prior to the postseason, we gave him the guarantee that if he saw Dr. Meyers he wouldn't be shut down under any circumstances. Because he just did not want to be shut down."