It doesn’t seem so long ago that the Tigers were trying to figure out what to do with the 3 headed-monster that was Carlos Pena, Dmitri Young, and Chris Shelton. Well the situation seems to have resolved itself because Shelton is now the lone first basemen and the active roster.
Dmitri Young has shockingly found himself on the disabled list with a strained quadricep. With that, the Tigers have been reduced down to two left handed bats of measurable worth.
With Dmitri on the DL, the bulk of the playing time should fall to Marcus Thames, and Alexis Gomez will fill the void on the roster. I’m okay with this, and am anxious to see what Thames can do with regular at-bats.
The problem arises when somebody needs a day off, then who do you turn to? Craig Monroe has been struggling the last few games, so it made sense to sit him today. The result is that for the second time in a week, Omar Infante is the starting DH. And then if there are a couple guys banged up, as was the case yesterday, the potent offense becomes potentially anemic.
The Tigers now find themselves in a situation where they have very limited pinch-hitting options, they only have one legitimate first basemen, and there utility infielder will be thrust into the role of DH when an injury plagued veteran needs a day off. I was worried about the Tigers bench before the season started, and it hasn’t taken long for it to come into play. That’s why even though I’m satisified with 7-5 at this point, I would have liked to see another win or two given the relative health the team enjoyed over the first dozen games.
Thing change…times change. Through all of it however, it was very clear that Pena was not the answer.
He is not the answer to this problem either. I do enjoy your site and have since last season…my only beef is your love of Pena. The man can hit the snot out of the ball (sometimes…when he doesn’t strike out) but he is not a major league player. It was time to make a change for both the organization and the player…they will both be better off for it.
Let it go.
I don’t think Billfer was saying that we should’ve held on to Pena in order to prevent this problem.
Of course I don’t feel like our bench is particularly thin either. Obviously when you’ve got one starter on the DL and three other starters taking the day off because they’re tired or banged up, the lineup is going to suffer. Who has a bench to compensate for a situation like that? The Yankees couldn’t absorb the loss of their DH, 2B, RF, and Catcher either. The anemia displayed yesterday didn’t result from Infante being the DH. Bring two of the three missing players back and the third will be able to sit without considerable drop off in the team’s production.
Injuries screw up everyone’s lineup and every team is faced with plugging holes with call ups at some point. Considering we have players like Gomez–and someday Clevland–to call up, I think we’re actually in pretty good shape.
Aloysius,
It isn’t so much a love of Pena, as a lament about the state of the bench. I’m not advocating that he start, just that he’d be a better option than what is currently available. Now I know there were other circumstances, like the fact he wanted the hell out of Detroit, that made his leaving mandatory.
And in all fairness, I may deserve it because I’ve beat the topic to death. I also probably stuck up for Pena more than I should have, because people were bashing him more than he probably deserved.
My main frustration is that with an injury prone team, there aren’t a lot of options.
I thought of Josh Phelps… But he doesn’t solve the over-right-handedness problem. On the other hand, the White Sox didn’t seem to have much of a problem being overly-right-handed last year, now, did they?