Scott Harris said help was on the way, and on Tuesday the Tigers got one of their biggest pieces back.
Jackson Jobe showed up at T-Mobile Park just hours before Detroit opened its series against the Mariners, with the club planning to use him in San Francisco this weekend. A Saturday night start is the likely setup, and manager A.J. Hinch said the Tigers will try to extend him enough to ease the strain on a bullpen and rotation that have been thinned by the absences of Tarik Skubal and Casey Mize.
There’s a limit, though. Jobe is expected to be handled carefully after throwing 70 pitches over four innings for High-A West Michigan on Sunday in his last rehab outing. The Tigers aren’t about to push him far beyond that against the Giants.
Still, this is a major step for a pitcher the organization has been waiting on for nearly 14 months.
The 24-year-old right-hander, who can hit 100 mph, is back after Tommy John surgery and the long recovery that followed. Detroit sees him as part of the future, sure, but with the club sitting 2½ games out of the final American League wild-card spot entering Tuesday, he also has a chance to matter right now.
That’s the mindset inside the clubhouse, too. The Tigers believe this can still turn into something.
Kenley Jansen made that point as forcefully as anyone. The veteran reliever said he signed with Detroit in the offseason because he hadn’t been to the playoffs since 2022 and missed it. If the Tigers are going to make it to the postseason for the third straight season, he said, he needs to do his part better.
“I need to step it up,” he said, “pitch better. You know, I’ll be showing that a little bit.
And the rest of the guys can step up ... We just gotta come out there with a chip on our shoulder. ...
Let’s lock it down and hopefully the lineup just keeps doing what they’re doing, and we’ll take it from there.”
He kept going.
“I’ll be honest, the American League is not that great this year, and everything is wide open. The division is wide open. ...
People count us out? Great.
I love it. We gotta prove it.
Not proving [for] other people ... prove to ourselves what we’re capable of. ... I gotta prove to myself to be better out there.”
For Jobe, the return is about something more basic: being back, being strong, and proving he belongs. He’s been through the grind of rehab stops across the Midwest, dodging rain and chasing innings over the last couple of weeks. The final call, though, came Monday night in Detroit, when the Tigers told him he was ready to rejoin them.
He had just pitched the day before for West Michigan, logging 70 pitches, 45 for strikes, in his fifth rehab start of the season. He had been lined up for Triple-A Toledo, but weather changed those plans.
Instead, he went back to Comstock Park, where he had already made his first two rehab appearances. He also worked two rehab games for Double-A Erie.
Now he’s back in the big-league clubhouse, smiling, grateful, and very aware of how much has happened since the end of May 2025, when he first felt something in his elbow during the early stretch of his major league career. The Tigers placed him on the 15-day injured list with a right elbow flexor strain, an injury that often leads to Tommy John surgery. Less than two weeks later, the club announced the 2021 No. 3 overall pick would miss the rest of the season after 10 starts.
That stop was jarring for him.
“The game was kind of taken away from me, to be honest,” he said. “I had to figure out my identity away from the game.”
Rehab gave him a different kind of work, and a different kind of perspective.
“I had to continue to remind myself that this is for the long haul,” he said. “Obviously, I want this to last me. I don’t ever want to do this again.”
Surgery, he meant. And maybe rehab, too.
Detroit also made a bullpen move Tuesday, calling up right-hander Yilber Diaz from Triple-A Toledo for depth. The Tigers acquired him off waivers from the Arizona Diamondbacks in June.
There’s more pitching help on the horizon as well. Left-hander Brant Hurter was scheduled to make a rehab start in Low-A Lakeland on Tuesday, and Kerry Carpenter is continuing a return-to-play progression that includes hitting, running and defense.
Drew Anderson is set to start Wednesday in Seattle, with Hinch hoping to get three or four innings from him rather than making it a full bullpen game. Left-hander Framber Valdez will start the series finale on Thursday.
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