The Tigers hope to learn more about the status of reliever Al Aburquerque as the season winds down.
Since August 9th, Alburquerque has only pitched three times, mainly because he went on the disabled list on August 12th after suffering a concussion when he was hit in the head during batting practice in Baltimore. However in two outings recently, Leyland and head athletic trainer Kevin Rand have had to visit Alburquerque on the mound due to an apparent hip injury. Because of these nagging injury concerns, Leyland shut Alburquerque down for the entire series in Oakland.
Still the Tigers need to figure out if Alburquerque will be available to them on their postseason roster since he would make a nice righty/lefty combination with Phil Coke coming out of the bullpen.
“At some point, you’ve got to get out there,” Tigers manager Jim Leyland said Sunday morning. “You can’t keep saying, ‘Well, we’ve got time. We’ve got time.’ We don’t have that much time in his situation. I don’t want it to come out wrong, because I don’t want him to start saying, ‘Oh, I’ve got to pitch right now or I’m not going to be on.’
“That’s not what I’m saying. But at some point, you run out of time.”
According to Chris Iott of Mlive.com, Alburquerque is 6-1 with a 2.04 ERA and has struck out 62 in 29 1-3 innings pitched. Opposing hitters are batting just .145 against him.
Guillen injured… again.
Tigers infielder Carlos Guillen was once again injured in the fourth inning of Detroit’s 3-0 victory over the A’s Sunday. The latest injury to the veteran seems to be a calf strain.
It’s still not clear how Guillen suffered the injury since he limped off the field after Jemile Weeks grounded out to pitcher Justin Verlander to lead off the fourth.
Guillen will be re-evaluated on Monday prior to the series with the Royals however with nine games left in the season this could potentially play a role on whether or not Guillen is included on the playoff roster.
Re: Mlive.com
