Well, with only a few days left before the season begins on Monday, the Tigers have settled their rotation questions by trading Nate Robertson to Florida. The first turn through the rotation will look like this:
1. Justin Verlander at Kansas City (5.63 ERA)
2. Max Scherzer at Kansas City (7.15 ERA)
3. Dontrelle Willis at Kansas City (3.26 ERA)
4. Rick Porcello at home vs. Cleveland (1.50 ERA)
5. Jeremy Bonderman at home vs. Cleveland (6.92 ERA)
5 comments:
I was just reading in this morning's Detroit News that the first three spots are set, with Verlander, Porcello, and Scherzer. The last two spots are still very much up-in-the-air; Robertson and Willis have probably looked the best of the five candidates for those two spots, altho nobody really knows for sure what might happen with them, once the hitters are using live ammo. Dontrelle has looked good in the spring before. Bonderman has occasionally looked good, occasionally horrible (altho his ERA suggests that the horrible has rather predominated). But there's still a lot of innings between now and Opening Day. . .
Yeah they've slotted in Scherzer at number 3 since they acquired him, but you gotta give him a hard time for that ERA...
To be fair to Bonderman, too; he, like Nate, has had one good outing and one bad one. Bondo's bad one was just a bit worse.
Yeah, sending Galarraga down sure clears up some things. It starts to seem possible that they'll keep all three guys, and pitch one of 'em out of the pen (more likely for Bondo or Nate than Willis, I'd think)
Nate has continued to look good, especially considering that he can't hit 90 anymore, and is transitioning himself into a finesse pitcher.
Willis is putting up some nice numbers in terms of ERA, but is still giving up a walk for every two strikeouts, which scares the heck out of me. . .
I know what their plans for Scherzer are, but you're right - at some point (preferably before the games count), he's got to start getting guys out. . .
Anyway, this is shaping up to be an interesting year. Austin Jackson has looked great, both at the plate and in the field; Magglio is ripping the ball, both of which are nice to see. And Gerald Laird is hitting more like his career numbers than last year's disaster, so that's nice.
But of course, nobody's playing with 'live ammo' yet, so you're not quite sure how seriously to take any of it, yet. . .
And here is an interesting bit from the Detroit News over the weekend. . .
We will see what we will see. . .
Very interesting article. Looks like he's actually been looking at the kind of stuff the pitchers have rather than just at their ERAs...
I don't mind saying that his scenario is how I'd like to see it play out, but I wish Bonderman would show us a little bit better results, even if it is only spring training. He makes me nervous, too, although not quite so much as Willis.
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