Lynn Henning was just on ESPN Radio suggesting that Kenny Rogers be removed from the rotation ASAP and sent to the bullpen. It's his opinion that Rogers has hit the wall and won't be an effective starter the rest of the way.

H1Man pointed out in another thread that Verlander is nearing dangerous territory innings-wise as well.


Verlander pitched 129 inning last year and had to be shut down towards the end of the season because of a dead arm.

This year, he has already pitched 135 innings. Assuming he starts 10 more games and pitches 6 innings in all of them, that would be another 60 innings bringing his season total to 195 innings. At that rate, his arm would fall off before we get to the playoffs.

Henning suggested that the Tigers recall Chad Durbin from AAA and put him in the rotation. Interestingly, Henning didn't suggest putting Rogers on the DL for a few weeks, which might be the route that I would suggest. Put him on the 15 day DL and tell him not to touch a baseball the whole time. Hopefully he would come back ready for the stretch run.

If things are this perilous, I'm surprised that DD didn't add a "5th starter quality" arm. Anybody know how close Maroth is to being ready? Would you want to see Ledezma added to the rotation? That would leave us with only Walker as alefty out of the bullpen.

Lots to discuss here.

Kenny has been struggling his last few starts but he hasn't been as bad as the numbers suggest.

He is the kind of the pitcher that relies on deception to make up for his lack of pure stuff. He is most succesful when his pitches are off the plate and people chase them only to end up swinging or making weak contact. Where he gets in trouble is when the opposing teams don't chase the borderline pitches and force him to throw over the plate. That combined with the fact that the umps haven't been giving him the outside strikes just magnifies the problem.

I do think that he would benefit from skipping a start or two and getting some extra rest (especially given his age and history of bad 2nd halves). The DL idea might work too. But I just can't see Leyland pulling a veteran like Rogers from the rotation.

makes for horrible conversation, but i have a ton of faith in tiger management these days. im sure theyll do exactly the right thing.

good for watching the sport, not so good for discussing it.

Kenny's post all star break numbers have been pretty bad for the last 5 years or so. If it is that he wears down, I'd love to see him miss a start or two to get him ready for the playoffs. I'm interested to see what happens if we still have a good lead come september.

If we're up 7-8 games still, we don't have to nail-bite on every game and with the roster callup options, we could do alot of things differently for a few weeks to try and get these guys some rest. We could have Sanchez and Tata in the bullpen able to come in for 3-4 inning stints.

I don't think you can demote to the bullpen a vet like Kenny. It's too big of a slap in the face. They should see what guys clear waivers and see what can be done via waiver trade or got to a 6 man rotation.

I like the idea of letting him skip a start or two. Let Ledzma go in his place. Just let Kenny clear his head a little.

55 games left after tonight.
In a typical 5 man rotation that's easy math, 11 more starts each.
No way I want to see ANY of our guys start 11 more games before the playoffs.
Rogers - already hit the wall
Verlander - inning count has been well documented
Miner - arguably hit the wall, but maybe it's just teams seeing him more
Bonderman - has had to shut it down early in the past
Robertson - got worse as the year went on last season, missed a couple starts, the team lost 11 of his last 13 starts.

We know help is on the way twice.
1st when Maroth comes back. Problem is they'll want him to make at least 2 rehab starts before coming back and he hasn't made one yet, so we're looking at a couple weeks before he could start a game here at the earliest.
Sept 1 we get a 40 man roster and can bring in Tata and others, maybe even trade deadline survivor Humberto Sanchez.
Those pieces will give Leyland plenty to work with to drop it to no more than 9 more starts each for these guys, helping them to recover for the playoffs.

The biggest problem is what to do until then. Ledezma is the easiest answer, and I would like to see it, but would Leyland do it? If he did, I don't think it would be in place of a guy like Rogers, giving him 9 games between starts. I think Leyland would use a spot start and just bump everyone back one game. I'm not sure how much one game helps these guys in the short term, but I can only hope.

The last thing I want to see is another complete failure by a Detroit team in the postseason. The Red Wings and Pistons fell apart from their regular season dominance, both forgetting what got them there. What has gotten the Tigers here, more than anything else, is their league leading pitching. If that falls apart in Sept/Oct this team could be done real quick.

Until the rosters expand, going to a 6 man rotation leaves the bullpen short a man, which could create a whole different problem, burning out the pen.

I really think using the DL is about the only short term (until rosters expand) solution right now.

If you use the 6th man just once, I don't think it takes as much of a toll on the pen. I'm not too worried about Ledezma leaving Walker as the only lefty in the pen. A number of times Leyland has used Walker for one or two batters alone anyhow, so he can pitch 4 out of 5 games like that. Just save him for key hitters in tight games. Otherwise, you would still have Zumaya, Rodney, Grilli and Colon to set up for Todd. I wouldn't pitch Ledezma for 3 games before his start or 2-3 games after his start, depending on how long he goes. So you're looking at a 7 game span at the most without that extra guy. Let's say each of the starters only goes 5 innings. That leaves you with 28 innings the pen needs to pick up. You still have 5 guys in there to cover that with. Colon and Grilli can go 3 innings in a game if needed. Zumaya can go 2. Let's hold Walker to no more than 1 for the sake of being the only lefty (which shouldn't be much of a concern either since the rotation would be lefty heavy with 4 of the 6 being left, so the righty's would give a different look). Rodney 1, Jones 1, give each of the guys a max of 4 innings pitched in any 5 games stretch and it's covered, especially since the likelihood of starters only going 5 innings each over a 7 game stretch isn't great. You know it will probably be true for Verlander, but the other guys can go 6 or 7 if they're pitching well. I would stop it at 7 though, unless their pitch count is ridiculously low, like under 10 pitches per inning.

^can you mix in an "enter" keystroke every once in a while, jk

That scenario is fine for the short term, but we've got a month before the rosters expand so just going to a 6th starter once doesn't alleviate the Rogers/Verlander problem IMO. On top of that, all it takes is one of those Kenny Rogers 2/3 of an inning starts to throw everything out of whack.

I'm really surprised that DD didn't pick up an innings eating SP like Livan. Maybe the Nats can slide him through waivers still.

Ledezma to start for Verlander Sunday..... (Arm Fatigue)