Friday, January 30, 2009

Tigers should return to standard relief style

In the 2008, one thing that really hurt the Tigers was their shaky relief pitching. First Zumaya got hurt. His injury made it hard to get a good setup.
But things really got bad when the Tigers decided that Todd Jones wasn't fit to be the closer anymore. They then spent the remainder of the season trying to replace him.
It didn't work.
If the Tigers want to be successful in '09, their best course of action for relief is to re-create the combination they used to use. Under this plan, Rodney would pitch the 7th, Zumaya the 8th, and Jones the 9th.
Now that the Tigers have added Brandon Lyon they can return to this format. The simple solution being that Lyon replaces Jones.
Thankfully, Joel Zumaya has managed to stay healthy. If he continues, everything should fall into place.

1 comment:

Zook said...

Sounds good if Lyons has a good season and the starters fair better than last season. Zook