Brad Ausmus
The sting of the Tigers' seriously disappointing season is fading.
Brad Ausmus realizes how frustrated fans are, but the manager defends his bullpen decisions during the three playoff games.
Clearly, some fans never will be convinced he made the right moves.
Lynn Henning of The Detroit News writes:
Most aggravating to fans was Ausmus' decision in Game 2 to dismiss Anibal Sanchez following two scoreless innings of relief and bring on regular eighth-inning man Joba Chamberlain, who often had been pummeled during the regular season's second half. Chamberlain also had been a participant in the previous evening's eighth-inning, eight-run Orioles onslaught.
Sanchez, however, is a starting pitcher who missed nearly six weeks late in the season with pectoral inflammation in his right side and shoulder area. The Tigers were being careful with a starter who had shoulder issues earlier in his career and is under contract through 2018.
Ausmus, in concert with the Tigers training and coaching staff, had determined when Sanchez rejoined the team in mid-September, he would not pitch more than two innings or be pushed past a pitch-count that had reached 35 in his two-inning cameo against the Orioles.
"Even before Sanchie came back," Ausmus said, "I said from the get-go he would be used for one, maybe for two innings, depending on the pitch-count.
"We're talking about a guy who hadn't pitched out of the pen in about five years. He had had one inning of work in his last 50 days."
Ausmus also talked about Joakim Soria, the Texas Rangers reliever the team picked up during the season.
"When he first came over, he had a couple of bad outings, and then he got injured in the middle of a good outing," Ausmus said, explaining Soria's July-to-October timeline in Detroit.
"When he came off the (disabled list, in September), he looked really good. He got some quick ground-ball outs, and he induced some bad swings. He simply went into a bit of a pitching slump at the wrong time.
Ausmus also told Hennning:
"Regardless of the organization, it's never easy to win a division, even if you think you've got the best team on the planet," Ausmus said. "The fans show up in droves at Comerica Park, and a big part of that is because of winning.
