He was put on the injured list because of a groin problem but now the elbow is clearly much more of an issue. Meeting with those specific doctors leads you to believe it could be potentially serious but there have been no conclusions drawn yet, so the Tigers will continue to hope for the best.
The 26-year-old made his major league debut last season, throwing 20 innings with a 2.70 ERA. The Tigers currently have Jack Flaherty, Kenta Maeda, Tarik Skubal, Casey Mize and Reese Olson, with Matt Manning in the minor leagues, so they can get by without Gipson-Long, but you never like to see your depth tested this early in the season.
He had thrown three innings this year on a minor league rehab assignment. Gipson-Long was a sixth-round pick out of Mercer in the 2019 Major League draft.
The Tigers are currently 10-8 on the season and 2.0 games back of the first-place Cleveland Guardians in the American League Central. Detroit finished second in the division a year ago and is seeking a major jump this year because of the acquisitions of Maeda and Flaherty, as well as the development of youngsters like Spencer Torkelson and Riley Greene.
The reigning World Series champions grabbed the lead for the third and final time in the eighth inning. The game-winning run scored as a result of the Tigers’ third and final error on a missed tag by third baseman Gio Urshela during a key rundown.
“That was not really a mistake,” manager A.J. Hinch said of the rundown. “We made plenty of mistakes today, but that wasn’t one of them. That was a baseball, athletic play that didn’t go our way.”
The Tigers (10-9) dropped three of four games in the series.
