Parker Meadows
In the past eight games, however, the 24-year-old is hitting .226 with two walks and six strikeouts. It’s no reason to be concerned, but it’s certainly important to watch how Meadows finishes at the plate to gauge what type of production he will provide moving forward.
Remember, Meadows hit .096 with 11 walks and 32 strikeouts in 32 games before the Tigers optioned him May 7 to Triple-A Toledo.
The future production on offense is probably somewhere between the bad results and the good results, but there has been more bad than good for Meadows in his 96-game MLB game, spanning 341 plate appearances. The final 90 plate appearances should provide some clarity. Either way, he is going to provide elite defense in center field.
Is Casey Mize part of the future?
Right-hander Casey Mize suffered a left hamstring strain June 30 and didn’t return until Aug. 30, an uncharacteristically long time to be out with an hamstring injury. The lengthy absence, though, allowed the Tigers to send Mize to Triple-A Toledo to work on his slider throughout four rehab starts.
Any gas left in Colt Keith’s tank?
It’s been an up-and-down rookie season for second baseman Colt Keith, who has prevailed at the highest level by making several adjustments over the past five months. He is hitting .257 with 12 home runs, 31 walks and 92 strikeouts in 126 games. With one more game, Keith will set a career high in games played during his professional career.
Keider Montero: MLB starter or Triple-A depth?
Right-hander Keider Montero has a pitch mix that’s capable of starting in the big leagues, albeit as a fourth or fifth starter. The only problem: Montero lacks consistency with his delivery and leaves too many pitches over the middle of the strike zone.
So I’ve have lost interest lately with the Tigers, and therefore baseball in general. For instance, I just found out the other day how the playoffs actually work now.
It was interesting to know that if the Tigers win the last wildcard slot, then they’ll probably play Houston as the lowest seeded division winner. Which seems like it might be easier than playing either of the first two WC seeds, judging by record. Also, I didn’t know it was a three game series and they would be all away games either.
So three games. One game will be Skubal and I would assume a must win? Then we need to split the other two? On the road? Then if we survive, we’d play a five game series with I would imagine two Skubal starters. I like that scenario. Old enough to know though that things never go the way you think. But fun to ponder.
Honestly, with the way these bullpen days are working out, I’m not so sure we really lost anything by trading Flaherty. At least overall it looks about the same.
I’d still like to have him though, and a big bat or two sure would have been nice.
But when you think about it, it wasn’t an either/or between bullpen days and Flaherty. You could have had both while bypassing some Monteiro and Maeda days with bullpen days.
