Detroit — On Wednesday, Tigers manager AJ Hinch had to take Isaac Paredes out of the lineup because of a sore right hip.
Before Thursday’s day game, the team placed Paredes on the 10-day injured list, retroactive to July 20, and recalled Willi Castro from Triple-A Toledo.
“Yesterday when we ran him, he still was not feeling great, so I took him out of the lineup,” Hinch said. “The next kind of rehab part with him was going to be a couple of days without him doing a ton of activity before ramping him back up and doing baseball activities. We’re not going to play short for that many days — short roster, not Zack Short. So we wanted to get Willi back up here and have a full roster in place and then get Isaac healthy and go from there. He will stay with us.”
Hinch said Paredes would travel with the team to Kansas City and would be hitting and fielding.
As for Castro, it was a quick but helpful trip to Toledo. In five games with the Mud Hens, Castro hit .391 with two doubles, a home run and two RBIs.
“I like the fact that he went down and had some immediate success in Triple A and he got to decompress just a little bit,” Hinch said. “We didn’t know exactly when he was coming back; we didn’t think it’d be very long, turns out to be even shorter than we expected with the injury. Continuing on what he was doing in Triple A, he was doing great, swings were good. Reports were that he was hitting the ball hard, he was getting hits, he hit the homer. He took the demotion the right way and just went and played and the opportunity came for him to get back up here and he’ll be in there most days.”
Rogers to take longer
While Paredes will remain with the team, things are different for catcher Jake Rogers, who went on the 10-day injured list on July 19 with right arm soreness.
“Jake has seen a couple of doctors, or at least they’ve seen his films, and the diagnosis has been rest is the best that we can do, Hinch said. “It is going to be longer than the two or three weeks. He’s not expected to do any baseball activities probably the rest of this month into August, which is then going to have to ramp him back up for hopefully a late-season return at some point.
“He will head to Lakeland, he will not stay with us. So that transition to Lakeland kind of solidifies the likelihood of him being shut down for the next two, three, four weeks, whatever it needs.”
It’s a blow for both the Tigers and Rogers, who had taken positive steps in his development this season.
In 38 games with the Tigers, Rogers was batting .239 with six home runs and 17 RBIs. Defensively, he had just one error.
“It’s a tough loss,” Hinch acknowledged. “Jake had established himself as a big leaguer and someone who can help us win and what he was doing behind the plate, the adjustments he had made at the plate, he was starting to gain more and more confidence as an overall big leaguer. So it’s disappointing for us, and disappointing for him. He was obviously upset by it. It’s a bad break for everybody but it’s our reality so we move forward with (Eric) Haase and (Grayson) Greiner and get Jake healthy.”
Fulmer pitches Thursday
Right-hander Michael Fulmer, on the injured list since June 27 with a right cervical spine strain, will make his first rehab appearance with the Mud Hens on Thursday in Indianapolis.
“I don’t know what inning he’s going to pitch tonight but he’ll pitch (Thursday),” Hinch said. “We’ll make a determination where he’s at. We’re going outing by outing with him. Whether he throws one, two, three outings, we’re going to gauge it based on how he does. He didn’t do a live BP down in Florida. He did a couple of really hard bullpens so we’ll get a pretty good gauge on the timeline that he’s gonna need to get back to the big leagues starting tonight.”
Fulmer, 28, is 4-4 with a 4.05 ERA and 1.30 WHIP in 25 games this season.
Although those 25 games include four starts, Hinch said they did not consider stretching Fulmer out to be a starter again.
Goff honorary member
New Lions quarterback Jared Goff, acquired from the Los Angeles Rams in exchange for Matthew Stafford in March, was at Comerica Park on Wednesday night.
“I did get to talk to him. He was with a buddy of mine, Kelley James, who was doing a charity event here, raising money for feeding families, I think it’s called Million Meals (Tour),” Hinch said. “So they were together so I got to talk to him a little bit and talk shop, welcome him to Detroit before his season starts. He’s a big baseball fan, has baseball history in his family and was pretty dialed into the decision making that goes on behind the scenes. So I had a nice talk with him and a number of people that were in his party. Nice to have him in town.”
Goff is the son of Jerry, who played in 90 games for the Montreal Expos, Pittsburgh Pirates and Houston Astros as a catcher.
So that means that Hinch has an extra bond with Goff.
“He’s welcome anytime given he’s got some catcher blood in him,” Hinch said. “I was a high school quarterback, so maybe I get adopted into his circle, too.”
Asked how good a quarterback he was, Hinch said, “Good enough to play in high school, not good enough to play after that. Kind of like Goff’s catching.”
Dana Wakiji is a freelance writer.