The Detroit Tigers led a charmed existence last year.
Other than an injury to Mike Maroth, they had their entire team on the field for the vast majority of the season.
That has changed this year with Kenny Rogers, Joel Zumaya and Fernando Rodney facing extended stays on the diabled list and others such as Placido Polanco, Jason Grilli and Jeremy Bonderman dealing with less severe injuries.
So far they have weathered the storm fairly well, but the series with Cleveland this past weekend may be a bad omen. The bullpen has been stripped of its power with Rodney and Zumaya out.
It will be interesting to see how manager Jim Leyland and the Tigers deal with this adversity.
And now we find that Carlos Guillen and Brandon Inge are day-to-day with minor injuries. The hope, I suppose, will be that the entire team will recover in time for a mid-to-late season run.
At least the offense has been mostly productive–if sometimes inconsistent (see last night’s game versus the Devil Rays)–leading baseball in a number of offensive statistics.