LAKELAND, Fla. — Detroit Tigers reliever Kyle Funkhouser was guaranteed a spot on the Opening Day roster.
The 28-year-old showed his value in 2021, posting a 3.42 ERA with 38 walks and 63 strikeouts in 68⅓ innings over 57 games (two starts). He earned high-leverage situations and became an important member of bullpen.
But Funkhouser won’t be in Detroit on April 8 for Opening Day.
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He will be at the TigerTown complex in Lakeland, preparing for his delayed start to the regular season. The right-hander suffered a latissimus dorsi strain in mid-February, about three weeks before MLB’s lockout ended, and wasn’t pain free until last week.
The good news: Funkhouser is throwing again.
“This is my third day of throwing, 75-90 feet,” Funkhouser said Sunday. “Basically, for the last couple of weeks, I’ve been doing rehab stuff with the trampoline and weighted balls, just getting my arm moving. When I started throwing the other day, everything was feeling good. We wanted to make sure everything was feeling good before we started throwing again.”
Funkhouser, based on the Tigers’ throwing program, plans to stay in Lakeland for a couple weeks after his teammates depart for Detroit. Now that his body feels healthy, he is in the earliest stages of increasing his stamina.
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Once Funkhouser transitions to the mound, he will increase his pitch count with bullpens, live batting practices and, eventually, rehab assignment outings for Low-A Lakeland and Triple-A Toledo.
“They haven’t given me a date or anything, but hopefully a couple weeks and not too much longer than that,” Funkhouser said. “Maybe three, four weeks to get it going and get off the mound. Maybe a couple games down here and a couple games in Toledo. Hopefully, I’ll be back in about a month. I’m thinking positively about a month.”
He aims to return to the Tigers in May.
“They haven’t given me a full timeframe,” Funkhouser said, “but I’m hoping that it’s about that. I’m hoping it’s not too much longer than that.”
Wily Peralta: ‘I’m ready’
Right-hander Wily Peralta doesn’t expect to be in Low-A Lakeland for long, considering the 32-year-old stayed active in the Dominican Republic while awaiting his work visa.
He signed a minor-league contract March 16 but didn’t report to spring training until Saturday. He is already stretched out to three innings but needs to face hitters in high-intensity game situations.
“I’m happy to be back,” Peralta said Monday.
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The Tigers will send Peralta to the Flying Tigers for at least two outings, then he will transition to Triple-A Toledo. Not long after that, he should be ready to join the Tigers’ bullpen.
“I don’t think it’s going to take long to get ready because I was able to keep throwing in the Dominican,” Peralta said, “but I don’t know nothing yet. I’m going to throw a bullpen today. I just finished my physical. Whatever they need, I’m ready.”
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Peralta posted a 3.07 ERA with 38 walks and 58 strikeouts over 93⅔ innings in 19 games (18 starts) for the Tigers in 2021. He had a 14.4% strikeout rate and 9.5% walk rate.
The Tigers plan to use him as a multi-inning reliever in 2022.
“I’m ready to do whatever,” said Peralta, who has started 138 of 230 games in his nine-year MLB career. “Whatever they need me to do to help them out, I’m going to be able to do it, and I’m going to be happy to do it, too.”
WARdle features Candy
There’s a Wordle-like baseball game on the internet, and some players in the Tigers’ clubhouse are active participants. It’s called WARdle, named after WAR (Wins Above Replacement), and the task is to guess an active Major League Baseball player every day.
On Monday, Tigers third baseman Jeimer Candelario was the player of the day. As folks guess different players, the game provides clues: team, league/division, bats, throws, country, age and position.
“That’s awesome,” Candelario said, after right-handed reliever Jason Foley taught him how to play WARdle.
Contact Evan Petzold at epetzold@freepress.com or follow him on Twitter @EvanPetzold. Read more on the Detroit Tigers and sign up for our Tigers newsletter.