LAKELAND, Fla. — Opening Day is eight days away. The Detroit Tigers have 39 players remaining in major-league camp to fill the team’s Opening Day roster, which will have 28 spots, two more than normal to compensate for reduced workloads mandated by a condensed spring training. Those 39 players include three injured players (starter Spencer Turnbull, catcher Jake
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Individual prospect successes sell jerseys. System-wide prospect successes sell World Series tickets. Look at last year’s Fall Classic. The Braves claimed a title with the help of homegrown talents Freddie Freeman, Ozzie Albies, Dansby Swanson and Max Fried among others — to say nothing of the club’s best prospect of the last decade, Ronald Acuña
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Clearwater, Fla. — Tarik Skubal wanted to keep throwing the heater. It was the fourth inning of the Tigers’ 7-1 spring win over the Phillies Wednesday and Skubal was trying to put bow on a brilliant outing. He’d beaten Johan Camargo with four straight four-seam fastballs — 94-95 mph. Camargo, a veteran switch-hitter batting right-handed, was tardy,
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CLEARWATER, Fla. — The Detroit Tigers topped the Philadelphia Phillies, 7-1, on Wednesday at BayCare Ballpark, improving to 5-5 (with two ties) in Grapefruit League play. What happened Making his third spring training start, left-hander Tarik Skubal gave the Tigers momentum with a spectacular performance. He turned in four scoreless innings on three hits, one walk and five strikeouts. “He
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LAKELAND, Fla. — Ryan Garko was talking with a group of writers in the lobby of the Tigers’ administration building Wednesday morning when executive vice president of baseball operations/general manager Al Avila walked through on his way to the clubhouse. Avila looked over, smiled proudly and kept walking. “Star in the making,” he shouted. “My
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CLEARWATER, Fla. — Michael Pineda is pitching Saturday for the Detroit Tigers in his first spring training appearance. The right-hander had his work visa approved, the Tigers learned Wednesday morning. He signed a one-year, $5.5 million contract March 18 but had to wait for his tourist visa to transfer to a work visa. Now, Pineda can work for the Tigers.
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LAKELAND, Fla. — Wily Peralta is full of emotions. He misses his teammates. He misses baseball. He misses the Detroit Tigers. “All the guys treated me right,” Peralta told the Free Press, speaking on the phone from his home in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. “They made me feel like part of the team right away, since
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Lakeland, Fla. — These are strange, uncertain times for Blaine Hardy. The former Tigers reliever posted a video of himself on Twitter over the weekend throwing his still-nasty array of breaking balls, changeups and cutters in 40-degree weather to JUCO hitters at Central Lake College in Brainerd, Minnesota. “Nicky was harping on me for the longest
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