Danny Knobler, now of national baseball writing fame, reports that Jeremy Bonderman is experiencing shoulder pain.
After reporting some discomfort around his right shoulder, Bonderman went to see a doctor this afternoon. The Tigers weren’t sure what’s wrong, but two club sources said he would be checked for a possible circulation problem in the shoulder. The Tigers made no announcement before or after tonight’s game against Cleveland, but Bonderman isn’t expected to make his scheduled start Sunday, and will likely be placed on the disabled list.
Bonderman has had elbow problems in the past, but never issues with the shoulder. His velocity has been down, but he’s found a way to pitch through it lately. I guess this would help to alleviate that whole Willis versus Galarraga situation though. Argh.
Well that’s just freakin’ great . . . on the other hand, it’s not like this team can get much worse anyway
I have this strange feeling it can and will get worse. Go Tigers!
When it rains, it pours.
What could go wrong, has gone wrong.
I’ve run out of cliches and platitudes when it comes to this season. Injuries, slumps, trades, firings, nothing would surprise me at this point when it comes to the Tigers.
Oh, well. Just wait ’til next year!
Time to start thinking about 2009. Who could replace Renteria at SS?
Don’t forget Casey Fossum waiting in the wings.
Casey would probably have more range at short than Edgar.
Who might be starting in place of Bonderman Sunday? Or is everyone just gonna move up, given yesterday’s off day?
Fossum is a slug fest waiting to happen.
I heard Willis will start Sunday
Fossum is just a late bloomer, kind of like Bautista. Of course, when they boom (I mean bloom) is still to be determined.
Call me crazy, but I wouldn’t mind seeing Fossum start Sunday. He is a starter, yes? So let’s see what he has as a starter. The team has to pull together and get that ERA down. 135.00 simply can’t stand, won’t do. Or maybe it could get higher, set a record, perhaps. That would be good comedy.
But no, really, I wouldn’t complain if he got a start.
Sean C. in Ill:
OK, you’re crazy.
But seriously, I agree that Fossum starting could be entertaining for an inning or two.
Yikes. I always cringe at anything to do with a pitcher’s arm.
Greg
In my dream world, Santiago replaces Renteria and shines, hitting like Polanco and providing solid if unspectacular defense at SS.
In reality, if the Tigers say no thanks to Renteria for 2009 – by no means certain – you’ve got to figure they will go after a SS who offers three things: Defense, defense, and more defense. It may have dawned on them by now that lack of said defense at SS it hurting them quite badly.
At least Bonderman’s problem is being dealt with early (or so we’re led to believe), which is better than him trying to pitch through it until August and THEN putting him on the DL. Right?
AG will get his turn again in the rotation. That experiment was a joke! If you are to keep him in the bigs you need to keep him as a starter not a reliever or a piggy backer. If Bondo goes on the DL this team truly is a bust. I mean you have failure after failure of the hittin on this club, and just as soon as the pitching comes around you have starters starting to go on the DL. Also I hope and prey that its not as bad as John Smoltz shoulder if so they we have some HUGE issues.
Also I believe that Sean C. is correct. Renteria is too expensive for limited defense at short. I expect DD to either go out and get a good defensive short stop or rely on Santiago or Holliman in the hole. I’d prefer the later of the two.(Santiago)
I thought last year was our penance for the extraordinarily healthy 2006, but I guess we have one more year to repent.
God, this team just absolutely blows.
I find some of these pitcher DL stints suspicious. like Bautista and Rapada. Like the DL is being used as a kind of holding tank or something. I don’t know if that happens or if there’s even any conceivable advantage to such a thing.
But I don’t think 2008 has been so bad for injuries so far, despite the recent news. Willis was no great loss, Sheffield was never healthy to begin with, and, at least in terms of his current stats, Granderson was outperformed by his replacements.
The injuries in 2007 were huge, agreed. Could have made all that 8 game difference.
“God, this team just absolutely blows.”
If at the beginning of this season, someone could have asked me to imagine the worst, most disappointing season that the ’08 Tigers could have had, and what that would look like, in no way could I have even come close to imagining this. This is a F-ing nightmare.
Not everything blows. The starting pitching has been much better for, what, 2-3 weeks now? Granderson is spectacular in CF. Inge has been tremendously not horrible. Larish has a clutch RBI single and a MLB home run now, off two good pitchers. Thames is on pace to become the first player in history with more home runs than plate appearances. And Cabrera is still hitting above .250.
That’s all I’ve got.
Well, Sean C., perhaps it’s time to start rooting for the Cubs!
This season is over. Actually, if we’re all honest, it was over in mid-April. The parts on this team just don’t fit for various reasons. I think even Leyland has given up. He seemed rather up beat last night after yet another loss. In his pre-game with Dickerson, he said losing wasn’t hurting his players enough. I agree.
I truly don’t understand the dynamic of this team. Last season, the Tigers put together an oustanding first half and then fell apart. I don’t remember at what point it started to come undone last year … Sheffield’s shoulder injury in July … but the train hasn’t gotten back on the track since. Since that point, the Tigers record, I’m sure, is well under .500.
How can a team good from good to awful with the flip of a switch? Most of the pieces are the same. It doesn’t make sense to me. I guess that’s why they pay Domrowski big money.
But it’s obvious major changes need to be made. And, really, at this point, Leyland and Dombrowski should be using the remainder of this season to evaluate and prepare for 2009.
I think they should start putting players at the positions they plan to use them in for next season. If Inge is going to be the regular catcher, move him there now. If he’s going to be at 3B, put him there and leave him alone.
The point is, don’t wait until next spring training to start figuring the stuff out.
“That’s all I’ve got.”
Fossum pitched really well against one batter that one time. Umm… jeez. Yeah, this is a tough exercise.
Vince – I would love to be proved wrong about Fossum. Unfortunately, unless you can tell me that he’s added 5mph to his fastball, or finally added a quality pitch, I’m not optimistic that we’ll see anything other than 6 Earned Runs given up every start. Its not the first time he’s put up great stats in the minors. Forgive me for being skeptical, but I’ve seen one too many of his starts over the last 5 years, and let’s just say he’s had the kind of stuff that major league hitters can’t wait to go up against. They see Fossum on the mound and say to themselves, ‘Time to pad my stats.’
Honestly I root for the Cubs as my NL team anyway! Their games always seem to be on at the right time for me to watch.
“Fossum pitched really well against one batter that one time”
Yeah, that’s right! I remember that. Man, those were the days.
I could listen to the Cubs games all the time if I chose to, and really should, since they play a much more interesting style of baseball than Detroit. I think they call it “winning baseball” or some such. It’s a very weird, NL style of play. I just can’t embrace it.
I feel guilty that I only started paying serious attention to the Tigers, after years of neglect, when they started making noise in 2006. But I also feel that not having gone over to the Cubs, or worse still, the White Sox, when I could have and should have, should count as a mitigating factor.
I confess, however, that I listened to the 2005 World Series games and pulled for the White Sox. Hey, someone I knew was in there.