Oakland, Calif. — It comes down to the same problem a Tigers team had at the season’s outset. At spring training’s start.
It’s the same issue that has dogged a team for too much of the past decade.
There are too few options. Too few choices. Too few answers to yet another Tigers bullpen crisis that turned traumatic during back-to-back games at Oakland Coliseum, which saw closer Francisco Rodriguez unravel again Sunday as the Athletics scored three times in the ninth to stab the Tigers, 8-6.
“Good questions,” said Tigers manager Brad Ausmus, who was asked after Sunday’s game if he was essentially trapped — lacking a ready-made replacement for K-Rod and just as empty on places to use a man who is one-seventh of a relief corps that can’t afford bench-sitters.