Any Chance of Detrot's Denny Bautista Closing This Season?

[Rohan]

If/when Jones gets hurt it seems like he'd be next in line. When Rodney returns he'd be the closer. Any reason why Rodney would not close when healthy?

[GotowarMissAgnes]

I'd answer but the monkey's flying outta my butt are getting in the way right now.

[MTUCache]

As I said in the closer topic, it would take a TON of bad outings for Jones to lose that job... frankly, I think it's much more likely that he gets injured. In fact, that's really the only way he stops closing this year.

Even if it did, Denny's still only got a 10-20% chance of taking the job. Really, I'd put him only at a 30% chance of becoming the 8th inning guy.

1-2% chance...

All I was really pointing out with that post was that Leyland gave him a surprisingly high-stakes shot for two innings, and that's got to count for something.

[Inukchuk]

I hope not. It took him around 45 minutes to strike out Alex Gordon. The guy is sloooooooow...

[GotowarMissAgnes]

And considering Denny's performance in his first effort at getting real major league batters out this year:

http://mlb.mlb.com/news/boxscore.jsp?gi ... b_detmlb_1

I'd guess his chances are already shrinking.

Seriously, if Jones gets hurt, I'm sure Detroit will be out on the market trading for a real closer. Maybe Bautista gets a few chances while that happens, but the Tigers are not putting their chances at the post-season in his hands.