The Detroit Tigers have had a horribly bad stretch of luck during the summer of 2022. With another injury setback and Beau Brieske being scratched from his projected start on Thursday. In his absence, it’s Garrett Hill who must step up into his spot.
While it’s just for this start that he’s shifting up in the rotation, however, Garrett Hill has been around since July, making spot starts. But with the consistent flow of pitchers to the Injured List (IL) from the Detroit Tigers, the rotation has been a mess.
With the latest news, it’s not getting any easier. With Tarik Skubal already on the IL and Brieske going to be out longer, this team needs all the help they can get. Even with Eduardo Rodríguez heading towards a return later this month, Hill is going to be asked to step up in his absence.
There’s no reason to believe he cannot fill out the rotation and eat up some innings. The question is, what can be expected from the right-hander? How can Hill slot into the rotation?
Detroit Tigers starting pitcher Garrett Hill is being forced to step up.
Hill made his debut back in July, with his first start coming on July 4th. The right-handed pitcher delivered six innings, allowing just one run while picking up his first three career punchouts. Since then, he’s made five starts, with the last one coming last Saturday (August 6th), where he threw 5.2 innings pitched, punching out six and allowing just one earned run.
He’s not going to emerge as an ace or come out at the end of 2022 looking like some key piece to the rotation moving forward, but he’s a big-league arm who is going to keep the Tigers in games moving forward. So far, he has managed to accrue 31.2 innings pitched, pitching to a 5.12 ERA, a 1.39 WHIP, and punching out 17 hitters in the process.
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But, in the absence of so many arms, the Tigers are going to need Hill to keep piecing together good starts. In his most recent start, it was the best showing he’s had since his first outing. Everything in between could have been a lot smoother than what ended up happening.
The Tigers need help from unlikely places; Brieske is one of the guys who filled that role. But, Hill is aiming to be the “next-man-up” in this case. While not many teams would call this a “next man up” approach by choice, the Tigers are being forced to adopt that mentality.
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As Hill heads to the mound on Thursday, he’s going to need to bring some of the same energy he did in his last start. The hope should be that he can piece together another solid outing against the Cleveland Guardians. After that, it’s going to be a hope for momentum, hoping that he can continue to piece good outings together.
