Edwin Jackson has provided the Detroit Tigers with a breath of fresh air. What? Yes, that Edwin Jackson. The journeyman starter rejoined the Tigers on August 9th and exited the field to a standing ovation.
There are not many positive things to talk about these days when you bring up the Detroit Tigers. We the fans are looking towards the young prospects scattered throughout the farm system and wondering how many will be coming to play at Comerica Park when the rosters expand in September.
As the Detroit Tigers with a winning percentage of .301, limp towards the top pick in next summer’s MLB Draft the only team that could potentially spoil the party are the Baltimore Orioles at .317. Those numbers surely make your stomach turn. Many fans have totally tuned out the Detroit Tigers especially with the Detroit Lions regular season just around the corner.
With the Detroit Tigers rolling out any available arm to the mound to start a game this season, why not sign the soon to be 36-year old Edwin Jackson? What do you think GM Al Avila was attracted too? Maybe it was his plus 11.00 season Era? Yep, that’s correct, with the Toronto Blue Jays Jackson posted an 11.12 Era throughout eight starts. The Tigers signed Jackson to a minor league deal and assigned him to Toledo after the Jays parted ways.
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With the injuries continuing to mount with the Detroit Tigers starting staff the team had been forced to run out anyone who can throw a baseball to start ball games. The Tigers aren’t going to bring up any of their young prospects until September, so they don’t burn any of their MLB Service time. That eliminated Casey Mize who’s been battling an injury himself the organization is calling a ‘tired arm.’ The team has shut him down for the remainder of the season.
Franklin Perez is the definition of term injury; it’s been non-stop issues with Perez since joining the Tigers organization in the Justin Verlander deal. Matt Manning, Beau Burrows, Alex Faedo are all candidates to join the big club come September.
After re-joining the organization, Edwin Jackson had been recalled and found himself on the bump once again in Comerica Park, throwing out the first pitch of a ball-game for the Detroit Tigers. It felt like 2009 again as I glanced up to watch Jackson throw his warmup tosses. The first batter Wit Merryfield hit an inside the park home run. You can’t make this stuff up. At that point, it felt like Jackson would live up to his near 12.00 Era.
The veteran settled in and tossed a gem for the Detroit Tigers. Jackson pitched into the seventh inning, officially recording 6.1 innings, only yielding 4 hits and just that 1 run. As Jackson exited the game in the 7th, the crowd applauded him with a standing ovation.
Since that first start back with the Tigers, Jackson has started two more games. Another decent outing and a bad one. The bad one came at the hands of arguably the best team in baseball, the Houston Astros.
One person I wished I was is Edwin Jackson’s real estate agent. The World Series Champion, the one-time all-star starting pitcher, has pitched with 14 different MLB teams. That doesn’t include reoccurring visits with three organizations. That’s moving 17 times throughout his 17-year career. Crazy.
After three starts with the Detroit Tigers, Jackson has posted 3.93 Era. He’s recorded a 2-1 record. Jackson isn’t a pitcher who will be around after this year, but he’s someone the fans at least tend to enjoy watching pitch rather than Jordan Zimmermann for the rest of 2019. We can look forward to seeing some young arms pitch throughout September, and then the season will finally end, in turn, ending our summer of ’19 misery.