Jeff Frazier ... welcome to the big leagues

Unexpected news from the Tigers after the game: Infielder Jeff Larish has been designated for assignment -- that's the second player in two days and third in just over a week if you're keeping track -- while corner infielder/outfielder Jeff Frazier had his contract purchased from Triple-A Toledo.

That makes Frazier the tenth player who will make his MLB debut for Detroit this season. The 2004 third-round draftee will turn 28 this year.

One thing you can say about Frazier -- he's had success hitting the ball in the minor leagues the past two seasons. He slugged .471 in about 100 plate appearances in Erie last year, and .456 in about 400 in Toledo. This season, he's slugging the ball even harder, but getting on base far less. In 434 plate appearances, his line is a .273 average, .316 on-base percentage and .527 slugging. Some of the drop in average seems to be bad luck, some can be attributed to hitting more fly balls than normal.

Another thing you can say: It's great to see him get a chance to make an MLB debut and live his dream, but it probably doesn't mean much either way from a wins and losses standpoint. It's just more evidence of how badly the Tigers season has gone that we're seeing all these debuts from quite a few career minor leaguers. Hopefully one of them is lightning in a bottle and can keep the team in the division. I suspect that is what GM Dave Dombrowski is trying to do, anyway. At the very least, he'll have more information to plan with in the future, or maybe they'll catch another GM's eye.

A word on Larish: I don't know why but he just can't seem to get the job done. Then again he's never given a lot of time to turn things around. He had just two hits, both singles, in 10 at-bats since being called up over the weekend, but he faced some pretty tough pitchers. With all the injuries this year I thought the Tigers might give him a shot to play for awhile to show them whether he belongs, but what they gave him can hardly be considered a shot.

I'm not too worried about whether not he or Wilkin Ramirez are lost, though. Ultimately, we're talking about unrealized potential and potential bench players, not stars. I find it hard to get too worried over that.

This season is getting surreal fast.