Daniel Schlereth gets hit hard….Again
The confidence I have had so far in this young MLB season in Detroit Tigers manager Jim Leyland is beginning to fade. I am not at the point that some of the other Detroit media is, but the failure of relief Pitcher Daniel Schlereth is starting to become a pattern. Tonight he was hit hard once again in a 10-3 loss to the Texas Rangers. The Rangers high powered offense scored 10 runs, collected 19 hits, and once again the bulk of the damage came while Schlereth was on the mound.
He pitched just one inning, and was tagged for five hits, and five runs. All of his runs were earned runs and his ERA now stands at 12.60. That is way too high and this experiment has got to end before he really derails what could be a magical season for the club. To be perfectly honest I have to now question why Leyland keeps coming back to Schlereth in key situations. Sure Adam Wilk and Collin Balester had already given up 12 hits and five runs, but the Tigers were still within four runs when Schlereth entered the game. Given the fact this team would responded with two runs in the bottom of the eight had Schlereth delivered this team may have been able to climb back into it. Down 5-3 I would expect the Tigers offense to make the game at least interesting if not being able to convert it into a win.
The simple fact that on top of the five hits and five runs Schlereth walked two batters in one inning. That gives him three walks and five strikeouts on the year which doesn’t sound to out of whack but clearly other teams have figured him out or he does not have his best stuff. For the record his ERA for this game alone was 45.0. Sure sometimes relievers have inflated ERA’s but it seems clear that the Schlereth answer is the wrong one so far.
The real problem here is there does not seem to be an obvious candidate to take over for Schlereth. Leland seems to be aware of this, but at this point I have to wonder if anyone would do better short term while Schlereth works out whatever is causing him to get beat up every trip to the mound. Looking over the Toledo Mud hens roster and stats there is no obvious choice for a bullpen promotion either. The Tigers look to be stuck in a no win situation here and that means Leyland has to come up with a better way of using Schlereth and his other bullpen arms. He must do that sooner rather than later before this one blowout loss turns into a series sweep by the Rangers or a prolonged losing streak.