The Detroit Tigers announced that starting pitcher Kenta Maeda would be placed on the injured list with a viral illness. Outfielder Akil Baddoo got the call to replace him. It didn’t take long to realize that’s more of a short-term solution.
Saturday night, Evan Petzold of the Detroit Free Press reported Matt Manning would be rejoning the Tigers to make a start Monday against the Marlins.
There’s no report yet who will be the corresponding move for Manning. It woud likely be between Addoo and Ryan Vilade, who came up in place of Parker Meadows. Vilade helped the Tigers to a victory with two hits and three RBI his first game up, but is 0-for-5 since.
That’s somewhat good news for Tigers fans, because Maeda has been inconsistent since rejoining the club and Manning has been a bit better of a choice. He has an ERA of 6.75 across seven starts and nearly 31 innings of work. Each time you feel ready to give up on him, he posts a nice start, only to again reverse course. The lack of consistency leaves one unable to feel good about any of his appearances.
On May 7 against the Guardians, for instance, he allowed seven runs on five hits and three walks and made it through just two innings. Before that, however, he’d allowed just one run across 11 innings.
For the season, has been worth nearly -1 WAR (per Baseball Reference) already, with a 1.40 WHIP and 6.55 FIP (fielding independent pitching) stat. His strikeout to walk ratio of 2.30 is the worst of his career.
While Manning has not been an open-and-shut case in his three starts, he’s been an improvement: 4.24 ERA in 17 innings with 17 strikeouts, including seven in each of his last two years. He walked eight, which isn’t great, but half of those were in his first start. That said, he has allowed four runs in each of his last two appearances with the long ball being a bit of an issue.
Manning has a 3.79 ERA in four appearances for the Triple-A Mud Hens with 24 strikeouts and seven walks across 19 innings and a WHIP of 1.16.
