Cruceta pitches strong in debut
Hard-throwing reliever could join Tigers soon after striking out six in three innings in Toledo.
Lynn Henning / The Detroit News
TOLEDO -- He was supposed to join his new employer, the Detroit Tigers, 10 weeks ago at spring training.
Not until Tuesday night did Francisco Cruceta finally get a chance to show the Tigers just what they got when they signed him last November after a sparkling stint in the Dominican Winter League.
And what he showed them could put Cruceta, a 26-year-old right-handed reliever, on Detroit's 25-man roster very quickly.
Cruceta pitched in relief against the Columbus Clippers, who beat Toledo, 5-3, and did not allow a hit or a run in a 41-pitch outing, featuring command of three impressive pitches.
He struck out the side on 10 pitches in the sixth and retired the Clippers 1-2-3 in the seventh on two ground balls and a fourth strikeout. In the seventh, he added two more strikeouts. He also hit one batter on an 0-2 breaking pitch, and walked another when he went to his mouth successively on a 3-1 count, resulting in an automatic ball being called by the plate umpire.
He retired the other batter in the seventh on a ground ball. No Clippers batter hit a ball out of the infield.
"He threw the ball pretty good," Toledo manager Larry Parrish said, dryly understating Cruceta's debut, then adding a punch line:
"I figure in a couple of weeks he might be ready (for Detroit)."
Cruceta's fastball regularly touched 94 mph and once hit 95. He added a hard slider and a lethal split-finger change-up, the pitch Cruceta developed after earlier stints with the Mariners and Indians, and then with the Rangers' farm system in 2007.
"His split, from the side (dugout), almost breaks like a hard slider," Parrish said.
"The only negative I saw is that he was tipping his pitches."
Cruceta is 6-foot-2 and 215 pounds. He conceded before Tuesday night's game that his visa problems stemmed from last year's 50-game suspension by Major League Baseball for using steroids. The Tigers did extensive background work and were satisfied with the circumstances of his ban, which Cruceta did not address in detail Tuesday.
Cruceta will likely be added to the Tigers' 25-man roster well ahead of the May 10 deadline the team faces in deciding Cruceta's future. He's out of big-league options and cannot be returned to the minors without being exposed to waivers. He was granted a 30-day extension on Major League Baseball's restricted list because of his visa holdup.
He had no hint there would be visa complications when he prepared Feb. 4 to fly to Florida for spring camp. The U.S. Embassy in the Dominican Republic would not clear his visa. Officials there sent his case to Washington, D.C. for more careful examination by the State Department.
"They never told me anything," Cruceta said. "They just said, 'We will call you.' I take three months waiting for the call."
He worked out regularly at the Tigers' developmental camp in Santo Domingo and threw with the same regularity he would have thrown in Lakeland.
"They got my back when I was in the Dominican," Cruceta said of the Tigers.
Bookmarks