Keep your eye on another young Tiger pitcher...

by grozzy on May 5, 2007 12:11 PM EDT

Eulogio De La Cruz has really started looking good in Erie. He is 23 and repeating a level, but he is also improving in all the areas that were considered a problem for him.

Hes another hard throwing young tiger. John talked about him as throwing "consistantly 95-96" and "capable of hitting 100". He also said he has a "good curve" and "non-terrible change".

One knock on him was his average K rate for someone with such good stuff, but this year he's right near a K an inning and has struck out 10 in each of his last two starts. He's also kept his BB rate down, only 8 walks in 32 innings. His ERA is a bit high, but hes only allowed 33 baserunners in 32 innings and he has been improving after a slow start. He also has a terrific 3.05 GO/AO which is all the more encouraging to his future success. His last two starts he went 8-4 GO-AO and 15-2! GO-AO.

He looks like a great guy to go after just as he's starting to breakout before the hype shows up for those of you in leagues with minor league players. For us Tigers fans, its exciting to see our farm system reload on arms with De La Cruz, Jurrgins, Vasquez, Trahern, Cody and of course Andrew Miller

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DLC

Was very impressive in his last start. He's always had good stuff. Hopefully he's starting to put it all together.

Also, you missed another good Tigers pitcher in your list, Jordan Tata. If all goes well he should return to the mound in late May. Here's an article updating his progress as he rehabs a shoulder injury.

http://www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070429/SPORTS07/704290393/-1/RSS07

by SBcaptain2 on May 5, 2007 1:45 PM EDT reply actions

Eulogio

If he puts up another 2 or 3 good starts, they need to challenge him with AAA, considering with AA he's already been there done that. Although, much of that was as a reliever.

Also of note, de la Cruz is one of those sub-6 foot kinda skinny hard throwers people around here love so much. He's always been highly inconsistent (spending most of his minor league career as a reliever until a couple of years ago), so hopefully we can be talking about him positively in another month or so.

Vasquez: maybe we'll be seeing him in Detroit soon? He's doing very well in AAA and Chad Durbin is well, you know, AAAA Durbin.

by mcq fesijiba on May 5, 2007 2:48 PM EDT reply actions