Trade Deadline looms for injury-depleted Tigers pitching staff

DETROIT -- On the surface, Sunday was business as usual for the Tigers, as much as bullpen games have become their norm lately with an injury-depleted rotation. Former starter turned reliever Alex Faedo led a six-pitcher procession that included five innings of one-run ball from Kenta Maeda, keeping the game close until two ninth-inning runs off Jason Foley finished off a 5-0 loss to the Twins and the Tigers’ first series defeat since their visit to Minnesota at the start of the month.

Outside the lines, however, Tuesday’s Trade Deadline looms. Even with All-Star Tarik Skubal likely to stay put, there’s a strong chance the Tigers clubhouse looks markedly different by the time they welcome the Royals to town on Thursday. And Tigers players and coaches are about as helpless against that sense as they were against Twins starter Bailey Ober and his nasty combination of fastball and changeup Sunday, which held Detroit to a Matt Vierling single and two walks over eight innings with 11 strikeouts.

“We need as much focus downstairs,” manager A.J. Hinch said before Sunday’s loss. “I know it’s not fun to write a non-quote, but I can’t operate any other way than to deal with what we have, what we know. So we’re preparing to win today, we’re preparing for the Cleveland series, and until we’re told otherwise, we’re trying to win games. There’s no reason to do it any other way.

“Part of keeping the noise out is not doing anything differently. I don’t know what’s going to happen. Obviously the office is doing their part during the Deadline as they always would, no matter what they’re going to do.”

Jack Flaherty is listed as the Tigers’ scheduled starter for Monday’s series opener against the Guardians, his second clash with Cleveland in six days, and he’s approaching it as a normal outing. Yet with Flaherty -- signed last December to a one-year contract -- regarded as one of the best short-term starting options on the trade market, there’s plenty of suspense around Comerica Park and even the clubhouse whether the Tigers will pitch Flaherty or hold him back, knowing the possibility of a trade and the lower back issues that prompted a pair of injections earlier this summer.

“It’s listed that way for a reason,” Hinch said, “because that’s all we know and we’ll operate that way until I’m told something differently.”

Sunday marked the Tigers’ third bullpen game in six days. With no starter listed for Tuesday’s series finale against the Guardians -- not because of the Trade Deadline that evening, but because the Tigers are down to three healthy starters -- they could be looking at four bullpen starts in eight games. Adding another on Monday could test the limits of a 10-man relief corps.

Hinch has said repeatedly that the rash of bullpen games is a temporary situation, that they’ll return at some point to some semblance of a normal-looking pitching staff. So far, they’ve avoided calling up a starter from Triple-A Toledo because the Mud Hens rotation has had its own issues, including an injury to Matt Manning and inconsistency from No. 13 prospect Brant Hurter and No. 5 prospect Ty Madden. Bryan Sammons, signed last year out of independent ball after five years in the Twins system, would be on turn for Monday if the Tigers wanted or needed to make a call.

It’s not only Flaherty in limbo. Catcher Carson Kelly was dealt to the Rangers after Sunday's game, and outfielder/first baseman Mark Canha is also a trade candidate. Even the bullpen could change, with lefty Andrew Chafin and righty Shelby Miller among the veteran arms expected to be available.

“I”m a lefty reliever,” Chafin said last week. “I’ve been sweating the Trade Deadline for eight years.”

Others with more years of club control could draw interest given the steep returns similar relievers around the league have drawn in recent days.

“There’s kind of a lot of balls in the air, so to speak,” Hinch said. “And we work so hard to keep that stuff out of the way of the players. The Deadline is a stress event on so many levels for so many people in uniform. It’s part of the energy that’s created in the industry, but it’s also a lot of agony, too, because you don’t know what’s going to happen to your team. So we try as hard as we can to normalize it and just operate the way we’re going to operate. And if there’s a change in plans, the office will let me know and I’ll let the players know.”