{"id":89153,"date":"2025-06-08T19:41:09","date_gmt":"2025-06-08T19:41:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/89153\/"},"modified":"2025-06-08T19:41:09","modified_gmt":"2025-06-08T19:41:09","slug":"tigers-notes-vierling-olson-urquidy-boyd","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/89153\/","title":{"rendered":"Tigers Notes: Vierling, Olson, Urquidy, Boyd"},"content":{"rendered":"

A right rotator cuff strain delayed Matt Vierling<\/a>\u2019s season debut until May 23, and he played in only four games before inflammation in that same right shoulder sent him back to the injured list.\u00a0 The Tigers utilityman\u2019s luck may be starting to change, however, as a visit with Dr. Keith Meister earlier this week resulted in what Vierling described as \u201cabsolutely the best-case scenario\u201d of just inflammation.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was nervous it might be something more serious, but the MRI showed that everything was fine structurally\u2026.I will start throwing [Sunday] and build up from there.\u00a0 There is no exact timeline but hopefully sooner than later,\u201d Vierling told the Detroit News\u2019 Chris McCosky<\/a> and other reporters yesterday.\u00a0 Vierling also noted that he received an injection in his shoulder during his appointment.<\/p>\n

Vierling is the only position player on the Tigers\u2019 injured list, after a swath of early-season injuries left the club heavily depleted in the outfield.\u00a0 Parker Meadows<\/a> and Wenceel Perez<\/a> have now both returned from the IL, Zach McKinstry<\/a> remains a Swiss Army knife around the diamond, and Javier Baez<\/a> has also evolved from a shortstop into more of a utility player (and a part-time center fielder).<\/p>\n

All that\u2019s missing now is Vierling, who filled a multi-positional role for Detroit in 2023-24 by suiting up at third base and at all three outfield positions, as well as a couple of appearances at first and second base.\u00a0 Vierling also hit a respectable .259\/.320\/.406 over 1097 plate appearances over those two seasons, and his right-handed bat can help balance out a Tigers lineup that is still heavy in left-handed hitters.<\/p>\n

Turning to the pitching side of the injured list, Tigers manager A.J. Hinch<\/a> provided McCosky and company with an update on Reese Olson<\/a>\u2019s status.\u00a0 Olson received an injection in his inflamed right ring finger last Wednesday, and threw a bullpen session on Saturday.\u00a0 The next step will be incorporating changeups in Olson\u2019s throwing sessions and future bullpens, which is the key step since it was throwing the changeup that led to the inflammation in the first place.<\/p>\n

Olson increased his changeup usage this season, throwing the pitch 25.3% of the time and making it his chief secondary offering behind his sinker (31%).\u00a0 An average pitch for Olson over his first two MLB seasons, the changeup was now suddenly his most effective offering as per Statcast\u2019s run value metric, with the changeup registering a +5 this year.\u00a0 This was, of course, over the small sample size of 48 2\/3 innings in 2025, and the increase in effectiveness came at a price in the form of this IL trip.\u00a0 Olson hasn\u2019t pitched since May 17, and it looks like he\u2019ll continue to be sidelined into the second half of June.<\/p>\n

Jose Urquidy<\/a> won\u2019t be a factor (if at all) for the Tigers until much later in the 2025 season, as the right-hander is almost exactly one year removed from a Tommy John surgery.\u00a0 Urquidy inked a one-year, $1MM guaranteed deal with Detroit in March that gives the Tigers a $4MM club option for 2026, essentially making this season a wait-and-see scenario for the team in gauging Urquidy\u2019s recovery from rehab.<\/p>\n

Urquidy hit a big checkpoint in his process on Friday, as Hinch said the righty threw a bullpen session at the Tigers\u2019 spring complex in Lakeland.\u00a0 Many steps remain in the throwing progression, and McCosky writes that \u201cUrquidy is still maybe a month or more away from a rehab assignment.\u201d\u00a0 If all goes well, Urquidy could possibly be a factor for Detroit in late August or September, which would allow him to at least bank a few MLB innings as a bridge towards a fully healthy 2026.<\/p>\n

With the Cubs visiting Detroit for a series, former Tiger Matthew Boyd<\/a> was in town reuniting with some old friends in the clubhouse and on the media beat.\u00a0 Boyd was a free agent this last winter, and he told MLive.com\u2019s Evan Woodbery<\/a> that he had some talks with the Tigers about a possible deal before eventually going to Chicago on a two-year, $29MM contract.\u00a0 That signing that worked out wonderfully thus far, as Boyd has a 3.10 ERA over 68 2\/3 innings and has been a stabilizing force within the Cubs\u2019 injury-riddled rotation.<\/p>\n

Boyd has spent eight of his 11 MLB seasons in a Detroit uniform, though the second of his two stints with the Tigers didn\u2019t end well.\u00a0 The southpaw signed a one-year, $10MM deal with the Tigers during the 2022-23 offseason, but he produced only a 5.45 ERA over 71 innings before a Tommy John surgery ended his 2023 season and kept him on the shelf for most of the 2024 campaign.\u00a0 Boyd was able to return by the end of 2024 and, as a member of the Guardians, looked very sharp in posting a 2.72 ERA in 39 2\/3 regular-season innings and then an 0.77 ERA over 11 2\/3 postseason frames.<\/p>\n

That performance was enough to land Boyd two guaranteed years from the Cubs, plus the contract contains a mutual option for 2027.\u00a0 It is possible that giving Boyd a second year was too much for the Tigers, as the club was focused mostly on shorter-term additions to its pitching staff.\u00a0 Detroit brought Jack Flaherty<\/a> (for two years and $35MM, with an opt-out after 2025) and Alex Cobb<\/a> (one year, $15MM) into the fold this past winter as alternatives to another reunion with Boyd.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A right rotator cuff strain delayed Matt Vierling\u2019s season debut until May 23, and he played in only…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":59306,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[5,368,1387,2000,4,768],"class_list":{"0":"post-89153","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-jose-urquidy","10":"tag-matt-vierling","11":"tag-matthew-boyd","12":"tag-mlb","13":"tag-reese-olson"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/114649450679466926","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89153","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=89153"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89153\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59306"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=89153"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=89153"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=89153"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}