By Jeff Moss
DetroitSportsRag@GMail.com
August 29, 2014

If Detroit’s baseball team ends up winning the American League Central for the fourth consecutive season you probably will look back at Thursday’s events as the turning point.

The Tigers entered yesterday afternoon’s tilt with the New York Yankees trailing the Kansas City Royals by 2 1/2 games and were starting career minor-league scrub Kyle Lobstein against Hiroki Kuroda.

The Tigers front office thought so little of Lobstein that when they needed an emergency spot starter a few weeks ago, they promoted Buck Farmer —  who had spent most of the season in A ball  — instead. Hell, the team even gave Farmer a SECOND emergency start AFTER Farmer pitched 1/3 of an inning in Toledo and gave up seven earned runs and nine hits plus walks.

Yep, after posting an ERA of 189(!!!) and a WHIP of 27(!!!!) against the Columbus Clippers, Dave Dombrowski and Al Avila STILL thought Farmer was a better option than Lobstein.

Heading into Thursday’s matinee against a Yankees team closing in on them for the second wildcard berth, the the Tigers’ situation looked dire.

Incredibly, after a day of baseball that included Lobstein vs. Kuroda (with Don Kelly and Andrew Romine’s combined .552 SLUGGING percentage in Detroit’s lineup) and the Royals hosting the Twins, the Tigers pulled to within 1 1/2 games of first place thanks mostly to the managing malpractice of Joe Girardi and Ned Yost.

In Detroit, the Tigers and Yankees entered the ninth inning tied at two after a quality pitching performance from Lobstein (aided by Comerica Park’s cavernous outfield).

With two outs and runners on first and second, Alex Avila approached home plate to face right-handed reliever Shawn Kelley. I wasn’t aware if anyone was warming in the away bullpen, but I was SURE that Girardi would get one of his southpaws to face Avila.

You didn’t need an autographed first-edition copy of Moneyball to know that Avila is HORRIBLE vs. LHP and fairly decent against righties.

Against LHP this year, Avila has a slash line of .216/.269/.299.

Against RHP this year Avila enjoys a slash line of .222/.343/.397.

I am not saying this move was a no-brainer, but the Scarecrow was at home watching the game on the YES! network wondering what the fuck was going on.

And, as you surely know by now, Avila crushed a Kelley off-speed pitch to right-center for the game-winning hit.

You’d think that would be the most moronic managerial move of the day, but mere hours later, noted imbecile Ned Yost trumped Girardi’s stupidity in the late innings of the Royals/Twins matchup.

Unlike Brad Ausmus, Ned Yost has the luxury of managing the best bullpen in baseball. The triumvirate of Greg Holland, Wade Davis and Kelvin Herrera is so dominant that it is almost “Yost-proof.” ALMOST.

In a tie game last evening, Yost burned through Holland and Herrera before extra innings commenced even though they had only thrown a combined 25 pitches. (And don’t even get me started on why he pulled Jason Frasor after three tosses.)

Now, keep in mind that Yost wasn’t going to use Davis because that unhittable pitcher had thrown a WHOPPING 24 pitches over the previous 48 hours. (Even though Davis hadn’t made an appearance in the three-day period before that.)

[EDITOR’S NOTE: We interrupt this regularly-scheduled DSR article to remind you that on August 29th the Tigers trail a Yost-managed team over whom they conservatively have a $70-million payroll advantage. We now return you to your regularly-scheduled acerbic rant.]

So what predictably occurred? Yost was forced to use Bruce Chen in the tenth inning of this crucial game. Ya know, the same Bruce Chen who is AWFUL and entered the tenth inning with a 6.46 ERA. As I said on Twitter last night, Yost manages an embarrassment of bullpen arms and he backed himself into the “Bruce Chen Corner” which would be akin to Jerry Seinfeld picking out a clunker from his 100-car garage.

Chen eventually gave up SIX RUNS (raising his ERA to 7.45) and the Royals lost a very winnable game by the score of 11-5.

A day after David Price did his best imitation of Patrick Roy’s final game with the Montreal Canadiens (versus the Red Wings), Girardi and Yost performed CPR on a flatlining Tigers organization.

SO … THANKS FOR THAT, GUYS!!!!!

But I hope the events that transpired on Thursday didn’t lull Dave Dombrowski into a false sense of security. We got LUCKY yesterday. This team cannot enter September with the fifth starter poo-poo [read: fecal] platter of Robbie Ray/Kyle Lobstein/Buck Farmer/Kyle Ryan/Kevin Ziomek if they plan on winning the AL Central again this year.

Dombrowski has a couple of days left to make a waiver-deadline acquisition and he MUST add a competent major-league starter to the roster. I don’t know if that person is Bartolo Colon or Scott “Bizarro Kramer” Feldman or WHOMEVER, but you can’t enter September with a $170-million payroll and a hole THAT big in your rotation.

Especially when you consider that Justin Verlander is always one pitch away from having to shut it down for the season and the ONLY people who are optimistic that Anibal Sanchez will return this year are people NOT NAMED Anibal Sanchez.

Ausmus and Dombrowski aren’t the ones who are experiencing the sensation of returning lost sunglasses to Nicole Brown Simpson in their pectoral area when they throw a bullpen session. Not suprisingly, Sanchez isn’t very bullish on a fall return to the rotation.

Look, even with the Tigers’ calamitous season thus far, the American League pennant is still very winnable. The Angels lost their one dominant starter in Garrett Richards; the A’s haven’t been able to hit since they dealt Yoenis Cespedes; the Royals are managed by Yost and struggled to hit the Twins’ pitching at home this week; and the Orioles have lost Manny Machado for the year.

If the Tigers can somehow win the AL Central, do you like their chances in Games 1 and 2 at Camden Yards — with Max Scherzer and Price on the mound — and Rick Porcello and Verlander back at Comerica?

And if any fan base should know that ANYTHING can happen no matter the odds in the World Series, WE’RE IT .

But before you can win the World Series you first have to qualify for the postseason and the chances of that happening without a trade by September 1st aren’t great. It would be one thing if the Tigers had a Royals-esque bullpen and you only needed [Insert Scrub Emergency Starter Here] to give you five innings six times or so during the last month.

But starting Ray or Lobstein or Farmer with THIS Tigers bullpen is like safely navigating a minefield only to have to play a game of Russian Roulette.

TRADE FOR A COMPETENT STARTER NOW, DOMBROWSKI. BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE.

Because the last time we needed an “emergency” starter in the last week of a division race, you called upon Alfredo Figaro.

And nobody lived happily ever after.