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Like Stripes On the Fur Coat of a Tiger - 08/28

By Ian Casselberry

The Freep's Jon Paul Morosi beat the drums one last time for a Jack Wilson deal, as yesterday was the last day the Pirates could make a trade with the unknown team that claimed him on waivers.

Seriously, we have to do some sort of investigation into this because Morosi almost seem to have a personal investment in Wilson coming to Detroit. Calling Wilson an "expert defender" and saying he's been playing "superbly" lately is laying it on kind of thick, don't you think?

Jim Leyland said that Jair Jurrjens is likely to pitch out of the bullpen for the rest of the season, as his stamina will be reduced once he returns.

While we're talking about Jurrjens, Baseball Prospectus' Will Carroll chimed in on young Jair's shoulder injury for his latest "Under the Knife" column:

How much pain was Jair Jurrjens in as he left the game on Sunday? There was a telling shot of him biting his glove. That's acute and notable. Although the young pitcher's shoulder appeared to do something on the mound, an MRI Sunday evening showed no damage significant enough to require surgery. You can read that as a Grade II strain, likely of the rotator cuff. Jurrjens has a history of shoulder strains in the minors, but MLB.com reports that the previous pain he had was lower, while this pain is in the back. Every symptom points to an acute cuff problem as the result of seasonal fatigue, though he's at about the same innings level that he's been at the previous two seasons. Jurrjens may have a ceiling on his workload.

Chad Durbin is the likely choice "as it stands right now" to start for the Tigers on Friday against Oakland.

This isn't really Tigers-related, but is there any point in the Astros firing Phil Garner with 30 games left in the season? I suppose the timing kind of fits Garner's recent career firings and hirings, though. The Tigers fired him six games into the 2002 season. The Astros hired him during the 2004 All-Star break. And now this.

By the way, Astros owner Drayton McLane says former Tigers GM Randy Smith is not a candidate to replace Tim Purpura in Houston's front office.

Babes Love Baseball had a "conversation" with Magglio Ordonez. (Or was it with his hair?)

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