Detroit Tigers: Summer Camp 2020 Week 2 Recap

In this version of “Around the Tail” a recap of the Detroit Tigers, we look at how Summer Camp is going at Comerica Park and a look around the league.

This week has been a rather strange one for Detroit Tigers fans as Daniel Norris was the first player for the Tigers to test positive for the COVID-19 virus.  Also in case, you were curious about why you have not seen prospects Alex Faedo, Issac Paredes, Tarik Skubal, and Sergio Alcantara, they were placed on the DL.  Teams do not have to disclose the reason to place them on the DL until July 20th.

Livestream Gold

Dan Dickerson and Dan Petry on the Tigers.com live stream has been so pleasant to listen to. Dickerson and Petry discussions on how they see the strike zone has been fantastic and the overall presentation have been really cool. Hearing Petry discussing pitching sequencing about the young arms has added something to the broadcast. The delay after the first few days of no live streaming was definitely worth it. If you are interested in checking out today’s game if you missed it, click here. 

Positions Battles

Jordan Zimmermann did not do anything to gain confidence for Detroit Tigers’ fans for his spot in the rotation with today’s start. But credit to Chris McCosky of the Detroit News for using “tranquillo” which means in Spanish to relax.  Rather hard to do at this point with the free agent contract he signed but I digress.

In the battle for 3rd base between Jeimer Candelario and Dawel Lugo, Candelario has been hitting the ball well but as Ron Gardenhire indicated on Monday, he hasn’t made a final decision regarding them both but worth noting Lugo did see some time at 2B this week.  The story in the Freep.com earlier this week from Evan Petzold about Jeimer getting hitting tips from Robinson Cano in the off-season can only provide hope that it translates over soon. Meanwhile, Lugo is 0-12 so far in camp.

There are several bullpen spots up for grabs as Zack Godley, Shao-Ching Chiang, Nick Ramirez, and Rony Garcia saw action in the past few days.  Ramirez got Spencer Torkelson to ground out on his first at-bat in Comerica Park. Also, Kyle Funkhouser and Beau Burrows continue to adjust to life in the bullpen and both pitched two innings each today, not allowing a run and both registered a pair of strikeouts.  For sure we know that Joe Jimenez, Buck Farmer, Tyler Alexander, and Gregory Soto are set for the bullpen with Rony Garcia looking like he will start the season as the long relief guy. The funky delivery of Nolan Blackwood continues to be another headline in camp as he also fights to gain a foothold in the Tigers’ pen.

Niko Goodrum continues to secure his spot at short, with a home run off Chiang in the first inning of Sunday’s game. He has been batting leadoff every game and despite the rough go with a couple of errors in his first two games, he did not have an error on Sunday.

To end the recap, I think fellow staff member Chris Brown captioned this video best with Jordy Mercer retweeting the video, showing how good of a sport he is. Until next week.