After wincing after a swing in his fourth inning at-bat against the Houston Astros on Wednesday night, Detroit Tigers right fielder Nomar Mazara had to leave the contest in the middle of his at-bat. He was diagnosed with a abdominal strain in his left side, and today the Tigers have placed him on the 10-day injured list.
Those soft tissue injuries in the core can be tricky, so the move was not unexpected. Even a mild strain can linger quite a while and it behooves the player in this situation to make sure they are 100 percent before taking any cuts and risking re-injuring themselves. Perhaps Mazara will be ready to go in 10 days, but it’s a rather open-ended injury. So expect the Tigers to be careful with him.
From the Tigers: Nomar Mazara to the 10-day IL with a left abdominal strain.
Tigers have recalled RHP Joe Jimenez.
— Cody Stavenhagen (@CodyStavenhagen) April 15, 2021
To that end, the Tigers have recalled reliever Joe Jiménez off the taxi squad. He’ll be in uniform and ready to go on Thursday night in Oakland. Jiménez has struggled to replicate his 2018 All-Star season, posting pretty ugly numbers in 2020 after a solid but unspectacular 2019 campaign. His velocity was down a bit further this spring, and in the end it wasn’t too surprising that he was left off of the Opening Day roster.
Right now, the Tigers bullpen is a bit taxed after six straight games on the road with no off days. The four-game set in Oakland will no doubt test their endurance a bit further, with Tarik Skubal and Jose Ureña starting the next two games. Neither has been at all efficient thus far in the early going. Bryan Garcia, Jose Cisnero, and Buck Farmer have each appeared in two of the past three games. Adding Jiménez, along with the reinforcement of rookie Alex Lange, should give them enough depth to handle a workload that has also been moderated by a fine series of starts by the rotation in Houston.