Kicking Out The Kitten

The deal was made today as Mike Maroth is sent to the St. Louis Cardinals for a player-to-be-named-later. Mike was one of the few Tigers left over from the glory-less years and he always came to play no matter what the team was doing. His style of pitching will be better suited for the National League anyway, where a soft-tossing lefty won't get absolutely destroyed if he misses his spots badly. Take care Mike and good luck in St. Louis, we'll check up on you from time to time.

Back to the Tigs. What this deal does is free up two roster spots, since the player-to-be-named-later has not been named yet. Chad Durbin is likely to keep his spot in the rotation, which is great because the guy has truly earned it with a 3.36 ERA in his last 10 starts. When Nate Robertson returns, probably some time next week, it's more than likely that Andrew Miller will be earmarked for Erie again. As good as the kid is, he still needs to work on a good off-speed pitch, and Double-A is the place to do that.

Bonderman, Rogers, Verlander, Roberston, and Durbin. It seems that the one, two, three, and four guys are going to be stoppers no matter what, and having Durbs around to solidify that fifth guy role is going to be really nice. As long as Nate comes back from injury looking like he's healthy again, then things will really get clicking in the rotation.

There are obviously still decisions to be made in the bullpen. Fernando Rodney, Todd Jones, DLC, Macay McBride, Bobby Seay, Tim Byrdak, and Jason Grilli are your current hurlers out there. DLC has been impressive, Jones isn't going any where, neither is Rodney, McBride deserves a chance and Byrdak has been solid most of the time. It's unlikely that Andrew Miller will get moved to the pen, but it worked in September of last year and no one really complained. I'd rather see him down, but if he stays up, Seay will probably be the odd man out.

There's also the chance that Zach Miner will come up to the big league club when he recovers from injury and is activated from the DL, which should also be next week. Seay is again probably the odd man out if Miller is sent down. I wouldn't mind seeing Miner getting sent to Toledo- he killed a lot of the trust I had in him with a lot of his starts down the stretch in August and September last year.

The picture is becoming ever clearer, yet there are still plenty of decisions left to be made.