Joel Zumaya Gone, Will It Really Matter with Al Alburquerque on the Team?

Joel Zumaya will undergo exploratory surgery on his pitching elbow to discover the source of his discomfort.

Coming as no shock to Tigers fans is the news that this will likely lead to another lost season for the Tigers one time All-World set-up man and the heir apparent to the closer position.

While the Tigers were expected to rely on Zumaya and fresh off the DL Ryan Perry as the late inning righties, a couple of rookies have stepped up to assume those roles.

Brayan Villarreal has pitched fairly well out of the bullpen for Leyland.  He's averaging more than a strikeout an inning in relief but has been touched up a little lately and needs to find the strikezone more as he's walked a batter every other inning.

The real story of the Tigers bullpen thus far didn't even make the team out of spring training.

After dominating at AAA Toledo, Al Alburquerque earned a call up to Detroit in mid-April.

Alburquerque, whose name at first conjured images of Bugs Bunny to me, was quietly signed to a minor league deal in the offseason after stints in the Rockies and Cubs farm systems.

To say Alburquerque has been dominating thus far this season would be an understatement.  He's shown an excellent off-speed pitch and slider and has a fastball that touches 97 mph.

His numbers look like this: 1.74 ERA, 0.87 WHIP, .118 OPP AVG, 10.1 IP, 18 K.

His only two runs allowed were meaningless and occurred late in a blowout loss to the Mariners.

Lately, Leyland has been turning to Alburquerque in late inning pressure situations and he's responded by pitching his best baseball of the year.

Over his last three games he was brought in twice in a tied situation and once with a lead.  Alburquerque pitched five innings and struck out eight without allowing a run.

In fact, he only allowed one walk and a hit batter to reach base.  He struck out Alex Rodriguez and Robinson Cano in the top of the ninth vs. the Yankees on May 4—proving he's being effective against anyone.

It's way too early to hand the Rolaids Relief Man Award (do they still give that out?) to Alburquerque, but his performance this season has definitely been eye-opening and at the very least he's pushing Joel Zumaya injuries news to the back page of the sports section.