CHICAGO -- Just when the Tigers seemed to have a surplus of quality starting pitching, the injury bug that has plagued Detroit for much of the season bit again. But it wasn’t Casey Mize, whose abrupt exit Sunday against the Angels raised concerns of another groin injury. Instead, the Tigers placed Jack Flaherty on the 15-day injured list on Tuesday, a day after he lasted four innings against the Cubs.
The roster move was announced just minutes before Tuesday’s 11-2 loss to the Cubs. Flaherty was listed with right flexor inflammation, but the injury is believed to be mild, raising hopes that the right-hander could be able to return on or around the 15-day mark.
Flaherty gave up a three-run third inning Monday on back-to-back homers, and finished with 82 pitches. Still, there was no obvious sign of injury, and neither he nor manager A.J. Hinch mentioned any issue after the game. But Hinch said Tuesday night that Flaherty reported the issue after his outing.
“We were getting him tested all day today,” Hinch said. “We knew there was a possibility once we got some doctor reviews and things like that, so it was ongoing throughout the day, just making sure that we got him looked at and tried to make a good decision for him and a good decision for us.
“I mean, it wasn’t a clear-cut IL [move] when we woke up this morning. And then as the day went on, and the more opinions we got, the more we realized he wasn’t going to pitch in five or six days. And where our pitching’s at right now, that definitely couldn’t handle it.”
Monday’s outing ended a very good stretch for Flaherty, who had allowed two runs on seven hits over 16 2/3 innings across his previous three starts. He struck out 20 batters along the way and looked like his front-line form from two years ago.
“Some bad two-strike pitches, some bad early pitches,” Flaherty said after the game. “I was cutting my fastball a lot and trying to figure out what it was, whether it was grip or spinning off the ball. But it felt like it kept cutting across and cutting away. It wasn’t staying true to righties. I made some adjustments when I needed to.”
Flaherty’s resurgence helped round out a rotation that already boasted stingy in-form starters with Cy Young winner Tarik Skubal, past All-Stars Casey Mize and Framber Valdez, emerging youngster Troy Melton and increasingly valuable swingman Keider Montero. The depth allowed Hinch to line up a six-man rotation for a stretch of 13 games in 13 days out of the All-Star break.
Those plans are seemingly now thwarted. Making matters worse, Valdez’s first-inning exit Tuesday against the Cubs in his first start in over a week marked the third game in a row the Tigers got four innings or fewer from a starter, forcing added workload on a bullpen that had been operating a man short. Ty Madden, who had arrived from Triple-A Toledo in anticipation of a move, threw 75 pitches over 3 1/3 innings after Valdez left.
“Today was a terrible day,” said Valdez, who spent much of last week on the bereavement list following the passing of his maternal grandmother in the Dominican Republic, through interpretation from Tigers director of Spanish communications Carlos Guillen. “I have to recognize that today was the worst game ever for myself. It feels terrible.
“There were no mistakes. They just got me.”
The Tigers are expected to get Jackson Jobe back in August following his rehab assignment in his final steps back from Tommy John surgery last summer. Hopefully Flaherty will be back by then, but they’ll have some depth if not.
“We’re still encouraged,” Hinch said of their rotation plans. “Keider Montero is a nice fill-in. I mean, this is a guy who didn’t deserve to be out of the rotation. We used him creatively, and now he finds himself right back in it. Obviously we need Casey to come back and continue his progress this week toward his next start [Saturday against the Royals at Comerica]. We’ll get Jack healthy. We’ve got some depth that we’ve been able to stay prepared for this. But it’s never good to lose two starters early in the game, then a third starter performance with Framber today.”
Flaherty’s IL stint also means he’ll be sidelined at the Aug. 3 Trade Deadline. Players on the injured list can be traded -- the Tigers traded for reliever Paul Sewald while he was on the injured list at last year’s Deadline -- but the injury adds a level of complication.