Tigers must turn to this pitcher after Casey Mize injury news

Tigers fans were calling for Drew Anderson's head toward the end of April, after he posted a 7.94 ERA through his first 11 innings. In the aftermath of Casey Mize returning to the IL, this time with right adductor inflammation, it feels like it will now be Anderson to answer the call in the starting rotation.

Initially, some of us were vindicated — Anderson was the guy the Tigers wanted to add as a fifth starter before they eventually went out and got Framber Valdez and Justin Verlander? — but it was hard to be too self-satisfied when everything else started to fall apart. Verlander hit the IL after one start, Valdez got himself suspended, Jack Flaherty was terrible, Tarik Skubal got hurt, and so on. There was little comfort in saying "I told you so" about Anderson when the rest of the team was failing to live up to much higher expectations.

Unfortunately for him, there's also little comfort to be found in his improvements, given that everything is still bad.

In his last 25 1/3 innings, Anderson has a 1.42 ERA with only nine walks to 35 strikeouts. He's pitched anywhere between 1/3 of an inning to 4 2/3 as a starter.

Basically, he is starting to look like he might actually be worth the $7 million the Tigers signed him for this year, but it's hard to care when nothing else is going right. The silver lining, at least, for Anderson is that he now should have the opportunity to prove that as a member of the starting rotation.

Drew Anderson's improvements have been impressive, but Tigers fans are struggling to be happy for him

When it became clear that Anderson wasn't going to be a member of the rotation, it was obvious that the Tigers wanted to turn him into Tyler Holton's righty counterpart — a jack-of-all-trades swingman. As it turns out, Anderson is actually better the longer leash he's given; he has a 0.50 ERA in appearances when he's pitched three or more innings, and his first start as a Tiger (4 2/3 innings pitched) was almost perfect.

It's hard to swallow our pride and admit that Anderson is now a needed lifeline when we were despairing after his initial signing. The Tigers had everything going for them heading into the season, and an obscure KBO returner was the best they could do?

Anderson might get the last laugh here. Not only has he now been good longer than he was bad as a reliever, he might actually turn out to be a real option on a part of the roster Tigers fans wanted to see him least.

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