Detroit Tigers: Miguel Cabrera to IL, Renato Núñez is next up

In what has been a bad start to the road trip when the Detroit Tigers announced Julio Teheran to the IL, things took a turn for the worst this morning when the team announced Miguel Cabrera will hit the IL due to a left biceps strain.

To take his place, the  Detroit Tigers selected the contract of INF Renato Núñez. To make room for him, Julio Teheran was moved to the 60-day IL.

The team announced yesterday that Teheran was going to miss a “significant amount of time” so this move to the 60-day IL means that would not possibly see him for the rest of the season. During the radio broadcast yesterday, it was mentioned that Teheran has seen already several doctors about the injury.

Miguel Cabrera’s impact to the Detroit Tigers lineup

According to Jason Beck of MLB.com. there is no timetable for Miguel’s return. Since the home run on Opening Day, Cabrera’s slash line: .100/.217/.150 (2-for-20) with an OPS of .367.

Here is the swing that may have resulted in the injury to Cabrera:

Enter Renato Núñez

Núñez, who was one of the final cuts in spring training, was signed as a suggestion by Assistant GM David Chadd as a non-roster invitee. He does have power, as he hit 31 home runs in 2019 in Baltimore and in the shorten season 2020 season, hit 12 and he walks around 7% clip for his career.

One of the few reasons why Núñez did not make the team out of spring training was his glove, which had some cringe-worthy moments in spring training but in terms of Defensive Runs Saved (DRS) in 2019, in 179.1 innings of work, he had a DRS of -6 however in 2020 with more innings (235.2) his DRS was -1.

With Jonathan Schoop, who is playing first base for the first time in his life, it appears those two will be the combo for the foreseeable future. Just like Cabrera, Schoop is off to a slow start, only 3-for-23 to start the year.

Núñez hopefully can provide some sort of spark to a lineup that has a run differential of -22 so far on the season.