Detroit Tigers: Blaine Hardy provided solid work for the team

With the season drawing to a close, we are going to provide year-end grades to each Detroit Tigers player who donned the Olde English D in 2018.

The Detroit Tigers have nearly completed the first year of what looks to be a multi-year rebuilding process. While the team was hard to watch at times, there is still plenty to evaluate from this season as we look ahead to the next few years.

As with any team, there were a lot of excellent performances, surprise performances, and of course disappointing performances. Here at Motor City Bengals, we are going to be evaluating each player who suited up for the Detroit Tigers this season. We will analyze how they performed, what their future holds in the Motor City, and we will provide them a grade.

Note: the grade will be relative to what was expected of them. So a player who performed well above expectations may earn a B or an A, even if their actual season numbers are not that elite. If you disagree, feel free to drop us a comment. We would love to have discussions about these!

The Tigers have had twelve starting pitchers on the mound this season. So fare we have graded Jordan Zimmermann (here), Michael Fulmer (here), Francisco Liriano (here) and Matthew Boyd (here). We continue going through starting pitchers with Blaine Hardy.

Hardy started the season with Triple-A Toledo. There he started 3-0 with a 1.03 ERA with the Mud Hens. The Tigers called him up on May 13th and he didn’t look back for the most part. While he had a couple shaky outings He finished the season with a 3.66 ERA going 4-5 in 13 starts.

Hardy posted the second lowest ERA on the Tigers, only behind Mike Fiers whom the team traded away to the Athletics. Hardy proved himself to be a solid option for the Tigers and for a rebuilding team it was a sigh of relief for fans.

Grade: A

Check back here daily for more player grades! And if you’d like to discuss any grades, please leave us a comment on our Facebook or Twitter page.