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making sure the bullpen horse is well and truly beaten into a dead, dead, dead pulp

By Samara Pearlstein | March 19th, 2008

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photo illustration by Samara Pearlstein

Fernando Rodney is on the DL, with a set return time of who the hell knows. We basically already knew this; at least we knew that Fernando was not going to be a useful part of the bullpen when the season started, and that’s pretty much the same thing.

He appears to have persistent tendonitis without visible structural damage. As we’ve gone over a billion times before, this is really more a symptom than a cause. He has inflammation in his shoulder tendons. With lots and lots and lots of rest and ice and anti-inflammatory medication, maybe he can get his shoulder feeling OK again, but you know what? Tendonitis without a specific cause is an unholy terror, because it keeps coming back. After a point there’s little you can do to prevent it, aside from greatly reducing the behaviors that cause it. In Fernando’s case, that may be pitching (or at least pitching in the particularly zestful way that he does).

I’m not saying we need to toll the death knell for his career yet or anything like that. I’m sure the Tigers docs have a very lovely and aggressive anti-tendonitis plan in place for every pitcher on the team. This has been a very stubborn pain for Fernando, though. I’m just saying.

Anyways. Bondo’s been working on that changeup again. Check it:

“I’m getting to where I am comfortable with it,” Bonderman said after the Washington Nationals beat Detroit 9-1 on Tuesday. “In previous springs, I was trying to find a grip. Now, I have a changeup and I believe in it.”Detroit Free Press article

Yeah, OK. I’ll believe it when I see it have success in the first inning of a regular season game.

On a completely unrelated note, apparently Miss America is going to sing the national anthem for the first game of the season for the Tigers. I have seen this reported EVERYWHERE. This news is so utterly thrilling to me that I really can’t understand why we don’t have even MORE coverage of it. I mean, Miss America! The national anthem! Baseball! America! Miss America singing the national anthem! I’m so incredibly excited by this that I havzzzzzZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ…..

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 19th, 2008 at 7:12 pm and is filed under injury, Fernando, Bondo, bullpen. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

11 Responses to “making sure the bullpen horse is well and truly beaten into a dead, dead, dead pulp”

David says:

March 19th, 2008 at 7:54 pm

Perfect, Sam. A perfect response to all of this.
farlane says:

March 20th, 2008 at 4:01 am

Poke!
Samara Pearlstein says:

March 20th, 2008 at 5:11 am

David, you know how it is: Roar of the Tigers, always striving to be the voice of the people. The crazy sarcastic people who snicker when they see Fernando Rodney’s head getting eaten by a tiger, anyways.

farlane, :)
Jeff says:

March 20th, 2008 at 6:14 am

I dunno, Sam… It’s the one off day of the exhibition schedule, and the Tigers picked that day to announce the whole Miss America thing… What else were they supposed to do? Ignore it?

I don’t know about anybody else, but I wasn’t counting on 80 dominant Fernando Rodney innings in 2008 starting, oh, about October 15, 2007. Still, that doesn’t mean that trusting the 8th inning to some combination of Byrdak, Grilli, Miner and Seay (and/or others) is giving me any comfort. Not hardly.
dave wagner says:

March 20th, 2008 at 7:06 am

We’re relying on replacement level players to fill high leverage situations. This could be very bad.
Samara Pearlstein says:

March 20th, 2008 at 7:55 am

Jeff, I reckon they could’ve whipped up some lovely puff piece on one of the players. I would have found that more interesting than OMG MISS AMERICAAAAA!!11! At the least it would’ve given us the opportunity to get some potentially awesome quotes from one of the Tigs.

dave, yeah, that’s kind of always the problem with bullpens, isn’t it? Excepting the closers, most bullpen guys aren’t that far above replacement level. Zoom was kind of a unique situation, because (when healthy) he’s the kind of good that you don’t normally see outside of the closer’s role, but he was there because we had a vet as a closer and he’s all young and wild and what-have-you.

Of course now our slightly-above-RL players are dropping like tigerflies, so we’ve got even worse guys slotting in, and you’re right, it’s gonna be agonizing unless someone really steps up and overperforms.
Matt says:

March 20th, 2008 at 9:39 am

…which is why I propose that 2008 be declared the Year of Grilli.

He’s due, people.
Well if HE’S not worried » Mack Avenue Tigers : A Detroit Tigers Blog says:

March 20th, 2008 at 8:45 pm

[…] about. So we track possible trade partners for relief pitching, as Ian did. Or beat poor horses, as Samara did. Or speculate, as I continue to […]
Joey Matschulat says:

March 21st, 2008 at 5:19 am

You’re in the WSJ!

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120605911165653523.html
Samara Pearlstein says:

March 21st, 2008 at 11:05 am

Matt, I sure won’t complain if he has a good season…

Joey, ha ha, I know! I’m all proud and stuff, although he left out what in my opinion was the best part of that graphic… perhaps it was too, ah, flip for the WSJ…
Leshnock says:

March 21st, 2008 at 11:12 am

Congratulations to Roar of the Tigers for appearing in the March 21 edition of The Wall Street Journal