Detroit Tigers: Matt Boyd to Start Wednesday
By Matt Snyder
We saw Daniel Norris — the headline prospect in the David Price trade — pitch a brilliant game in his debut with the Detroit Tigers on Sunday afternoon. We’ll see Matt Boyd, the second (of three) prospects from that same trade, make his team debut on Wednesday night.
Jason Beck reports that the Tigers are calling up Boyd to take Buck Farmer’s spot in the rotation.
Matt Boyd will start Wednesday in Buck Farmer's place, Tigers announce. No roster move until later tonight.
— Jason Beck (@beckjason) August 4, 2015
Boyd made two starts with the Toronto Blue Jays this year. He pitched into the seventh inning in his first start with seven strikeouts and no walks, but the Rangers blasted three home runs off of him to muddy what might have been an otherwise impressive debut.
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His second start, however, was disastrous. Boyd faced seven Red Sox batters, all of whom scored, and was pulled from the game before he could retire a single batter.
His total line for his 6.2 innings of work is not good: 11 R, 15 H, 5 HR, but he did manage to strike out 20% of the batters he faced while walking just 3%.
Boyd’s major league career got off to a bit of a rocky start, but he’s been stellar in the upper minors this season. He’s thrown 114 innings across AA and AAA with 108 strikeouts (against just 27 walks) and a combined 1.18 ERA.
Despite the gaudy minor league numbers, Boyd isn’t supposed to be the same level of prospect that Norris is. He was once thought of only as a future bullpen arm, but his stuff has reportedly ticked up this year, and some scouts now see him as a future back-end starter in the big leagues.
Number 4/5 starters aren’t particularly exciting, but when teams can fill those slots with players making the minimum salary (or something close to it) they can spend the money they saved filling holes elsewhere (like the bullpen, perhaps).
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