So the Tiger pitching staff has collapsed since the All-Star break. Is it reason to panic, or become concerned (with the Tigers is anything reason to panic?)? Absolutely not. This is a young staff and there are going to be bumps in the road. Jeremy Bonderman was the latest to get shelled. He was hit hard by a very good hitting team in a hitters ballpark. He just didn’t have it last night, and so his streak of 7 consecutive quality starts was snapped. Don’t read too much into the fact that he had a bad outing, because 7 of his last 8 have been pretty good. Now, if he tanks his next three times out, then you can worry a little.

As for Wil Ledezma, again he is a young guy. This was only his 3rd start. In all honesty we probably got a little too excited because he pitched shut out ball in his first two starts. But even looking at his second start, guys hit the ball pretty hard off him, just right at people.

Nate Cornejo and Mike Maroth can start their own support group for guys who take no-hitters late into games, only to get hung with a loss.

The most troubling part of the pitching slump is that it’s effecting a couple guys in the bullpen, Jamie Walker and Steve Sparks. Two of the Tigers more tradeable commodities. Sparks was shelled last night, and Walker had a rough outing on Saturday.

Other Stuff:
-Franklyn German now has 14 K/0 B in 11 innings for Toledo. Is it time for him to come back and to demote Rodney who has walked 9 in 10 innings to go along with 15 hits?
-For what it’s worth, Brandon Inge is hitting .295 .361 .466 with 3 home runs
-In July, Eric Munson has a .321 OBA, and is slugging .457 despite a .196 batting average
-Alex Sanchez has 9 RBI already in July. His previous high in a month was 8 (twice last year).
-Ben over at the Universal Baseball Blog writes about the Ben Petrick/Bernero trade-and he likes it for the Tigers.