Will Vest is back in the Tigers’ clubhouse, but not back on the mound just yet.
Detroit manager AJ Hinch said Friday, before the game, that the reliever’s right elbow issue has been diagnosed as a stress fracture in a bone at the back of the elbow. Vest spent a week in Dallas getting multiple medical opinions after the elbow started aching. The encouraging part: surgery is not needed.
“Now we have an actual plan moving forward, and that's the good part,” Hinch said. “All that stuff sounds scary and we don't really know what is going on. Then you get a battery of tests and we can react accordingly.”
There’s still no timetable attached to Vest’s return. Hinch said the reliever will need rest first, then physical therapy and general rehab work before he can even begin a throwing program. Even so, the doctors believe Vest can pitch again before the end of the season.
“When a pitcher goes out with an arm injury, everybody goes to the worst-case scenario,” he said, meaning ligament damage. “This one is bone related. He is expecting to tackle this thing and right now, we expect him to be back before the end of the season.”
Vest has been a major piece of Detroit’s late-inning formula, and his absence has already pushed Hinch to reshuffle the back end of games. Kyle Finnegan and Kenley Jansen have remained the steady late-inning options, while Drew Anderson and Keider Montero have seen more work in those spots since Vest went down.
“I get judged by what I do so that's exactly what I will do,” Hinch said. “It's the same group, with the caveat of how we might use Keider.
We've used him creatively for a three-inning save. We've also used him in shorter stints.
We are looking to potentially do a six-man rotation out of the All-Star break, though that hasn't been determined yet.
"It's going to be game by game, series by series.”
Against the Phillies, Hinch said the Tigers could lean more heavily on lefties Tyler Holton and Drew Sommers because of Philadelphia’s left-handed lineup.
The matchup Friday featured Phillies left-hander Cristopher Sanchez, who is 10-4 with a 2.62 ERA. Sanchez owns the best pitcher WAR in the game at 5.1 and has one of the best changeups around, with a plus-11 run value.
He’s also coming off a rough outing in Kansas City, where the Royals knocked him around for nine runs, 12 hits and three homers in 3⅓ innings. Kansas City handled both his changeup and slider, though his season-long numbers still show how effective he’s been: a 57.7% ground-ball rate, 10.2 strikeouts and 1.8 walks per nine innings, plus a 38% chase rate and 32% whiff rate.
Detroit countered with right-hander Casey Mize, who is 4-5 with a 2.64 ERA. Mize has given the Tigers a chance to win in nine of his 13 starts this season, and he’s been especially sharp over his last two outings.
He beat the Yankees and Rangers while allowing two earned runs, striking out 14 and walking two across 13⅔ innings. If he qualified, he’d rank among the American League leaders in ERA and WHIP at 0.977.
At 29, and despite two short stints on the injured list, he’s on pace to top the career year he posted last season, when he made his first All-Star team.
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