Inge's Absence Creates Offensive Void At Third Base

Last week, it was the bullpen, this week it's third base; there's no end to crisis management for a major league baseball team.

Detroit spent much of the last couple of weeks trying to stabilize its rocky back-end bullpen with a series of moves that ended when Scott Sizemore was sent to Oakland for David Purcey.

The subtraction of Sizemore left the Tigers thin in the infield, which became apparent Friday when Brandon Inge was placed on the 15-day disabled list with mononucleosis.

With the heirs apparent in Class AA (Francisco Martinez) and low Class A West Michigan (Nick Castellanos) and neither one old enough to drink legally, Detroit is in a tread-water mode until it can determine when Inge can get healthy.

For now, Don Kelly will start at third against right-handed pitching and Danny Worth or Ramon Santiago will play when left-handers are on the mound.

And that's not taking into consideration Detroit is stuck at second base now with Ryan Raburn, whether he hits or not.

Raburn went 1-for-4 with a strikeout in Detroit's 6-4 loss to the White Sox in Chicago and looked a little more precise at bat than recently. Still, if batting average points counted as pounds, there would be no danger of Raburn being categorized as obese.

If that suggests Detroit will be looking for a trade partner soon, that's probably correct.

But first they will give it a week or two to see if Raburn can get untracked or to see if they can get enough offense from the platoon at third to allow the organization to be a little picky about whom it goes after to bolster the infield.

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