Well, scratch my plan... Zumaya is probably headed to the DL

Courtesy of Tom Gage at Det News...

"Says his shoulder is throbbing, heard a pop. can't lift his right arm and is returning to Detroit for an MRI"

-If true, that is bad, bad news. He needs work down in Toledo. He does not need another trip to the DL. And, if there was a pop heard, then this could be a long term injury and we still need him during the stretch run.

-Ryan Perry will probably be brought up if/when Zumaya hits the disabled list.

Update: Zumaya has been placed on the DL and Ryan Perry has indeed been recalled. Perry was sent down to Toledo to work on his command and on his slider. His BB/9 ratio of 6.91 is the worst in the AL among qualified relievers. And, his 1st pitch strike percentage of just 39.5% is the worst in baseball. Needless to say, he has to improve on those numbers. He has the talent, the fastball and the nautral ability to get the all-important strikeout. We all know that. Whether he can do that while cutting down on his walks allowed has yet to be seen. Again, I imagine he will be our 7th inning guy, at best. He is not ready to be put in with the game on the line, yet.

Ryan Perry sent down and Dolsi called up

As I had speculated after Perry's last appearance, our first round pick last year is being sent down to Toledo to work on his slider and his command. In his place, Freddy Dolsi will be called upon. Last year, Dolsi pitched in 42 games for the Tigers and posted a 1-5 W/L record and a 3.97 ERA. He also had 29 K's and 28 BB's. Not exactly a good ratio. This year, in Toledo, the 26 year old right hander is 2-2 with a 4.35 ERA, 19 K's and 11 BB's. Still, not a very good ratio. In 2008, Dolsi sported a 94.8 MPH fastball, 87.9 MPH Changeup, and a 84.9 MPH slider. Of those pitches, though, only his fastball was considered a plus pitch by Fangraphs.com.

Last year, in the first month he was with the team, he pitched in 7 games, 11 innings, and posted a 1.64 ERA. So, his start to his tenure here was pretty good, before it started to unravel with an ERA of 5.11 in June, and 6.30 in July.

For now, I imagine he would be the last right-handed relief pitcher on our depth chart and I think Leyland will try to protect him and the situations he uses him in. We'll see, though.

-As has also been mentioned in the print media and elsewhere in the blogosphere, Leyland is splitting up Verlander and Jackson in the rotation and is putting Figaro in between them. On paper, this certainly seems like a good move. In theory, Verlander will pitch 7-8 innings before Figaro's start and ensure that the kid has a rested bullpen in case he struggles. Then, once the bullpen has been used a little more than usual with Figaro on the mound, we come back with Jackson. In theory, then, Jackson will pitch 7-8 innings and make sure that the bullpen is well rested to come in for Porcello (who has yet to throw 100 pitches this season because of the strict pitch count he is under). Then, the 3 or 4 relief pitchers that were not used during Porcello's start, would come in relief of Gallaraga in case he has a bad outing. Specifically, I would imagine that Zack Miner would not pitch in relief of Porcello to insure that he would be available in long relief just in case Gallaraga puts together another poor performance.

-Cubs tomorrow. Zambrano vs. Jackson. It should be a dandy. I'll be here after the game to provide some post game thoughts.