On Friday, word filtered out that Jordan Zimmermann would indeed be placed on the 10-day IL (injured list) with a sprained UCL ligament. While the news was rough for the Tigers’ veteran starter personally, it also has serious implications for the whole roster. The pitching staff has suffered enough losses that general manager Al Avila may be forced into some decisions he didn’t want to make so early in the season.
That the Tigers weren’t going to be contending in 2019 was a given. But if the starting rotation wasn’t impressive, there was initially enough depth there to think that they could do a decent job of handling the usual slate of pitcher injuries.