Call it a money grab, if you'd like — after all, most alternate jerseys and hats for sports leagues end up being just that — but at least it's for a cause.

The Detroit Tigers, along with the rest of Major League Baseball, will be sporting Marine Corps style camouflage-themed hats and jerseys in honor of Memorial Day on Monday, May 27, and they unveiled what the gear looks like on Wednesday. They'll probably sell a lot of them, too.

The twist is that MLB donates 100 percent of the net proceeds from the sale of the special gear to its Welcome Back Veterans program, a five-year-old initiative designed to help fund university hospitals that provide treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and traumatic brain injuries (TBI). The University of Michigan has one such program that receives funding from the project.

In addition to the special gear — which can be worn on other days that individual franchises honor veterans — MLB fans be asked to participate in a pregame moment of silence to honor returning vets, as well as join the National Moment of Remembrance at 3 p.m.

DETROIT — Considering the dearth of guys who fit the description in the Detroit Tigers’ bullpen at the moment, it seemed almost criminal that a guy who’d proven he could be a big-league pitcher wasn’t part of the equation.

That will be remedied Tuesday, when the Tigers will recall Luke Putkonen from Triple-A Toledo. He’ll fill the spot vacated Sunday when they optioned right-hander Evan Reed down after the national TV loss to the Rangers.

In fact, Reed’s spot probably already should have been Putkonen’s, if not for a roster rule that states a player (barring an injury replacement) must remain in the minors for 10 days before being recalled.

Putkonen was sent down on May 11, meaning he was unavailable to be recalled when the Tigers sent Al Alburquerque down on May 16, forcing the organization to bring up Reed instead.

He might not have gone down at all, had his spot not been needed to bring back veteran Phil Coke from the disabled list.

“It’s unfortunate that when something like this happens, somebody’s got to go down,” Tigers manager Jim Leyland said at the time — his typical line in that situation, but with a little more explanation and emphasis this time.

“Putkonen did a terrific job for us in Houston. I think Putkonen’s a big-league pitcher right now, and I told him that. He’s a big-league pitcher that’s going to be pitching in the minor leagues. But don’t take anything for granted, go down and work hard, because he made a good impression here.”

Putkonen started Friday’s game for the Mud Hens against the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Railriders, and pitched four innings. By Tuesday, he’d have three days rest, so he’d be fully available by Wednesday at the latest.

And the Detroit bullpen can use him.

Despite a starting staff that had racked up the fourth-most innings in the American League, the pen was overworked in the four-game series against Texas by the starters’ inability to carry their share of the load. With the starters going just 15 2/3 combined innings (Rick Porcello went 5 2/3, Doug Fister 4 2/3, and Justin Verlander and Anibal Sanchez just 2 2/3 each), the bullpen had to suck up 17 1/3 innings of work in four days.

The bullpen gave up a total of nine earned runs on 20 hits in the series, but the vast majority of that (six runs, nine hits) came Sunday, when the unit was gassed.

How did it get there?

Saturday, Coke and Drew Smyly combined to allow one run on four hits in 5 1/3 innings.

Friday, four relieves combined for 3 1/3 shutout innings, allowing just three hits to preserve a 2-1 win, the team’s only victory in the series.

Thursday, Reed and Darin Downs gave up two earned runs on four hits in 5 1/3 innings of relief after Verlander’s early implosion.

It doesn’t help that there are several pieces that Leyland hasn’t found places for in the puzzle.

That’s in part because guys like Alburquerque, Brayan Villarreal, Bruce Rondon and Octavio Dotel — all of whom were expected to carry the load of middle relief — are all missing at the moment. Dotel is nursing elbow inflammation, and is not expected back anytime soon.

The other three are all working out control issues at Toledo.

That puts more of an onus on guys like Putkonen, Jose Ortega and Reed — none of whom were in the team’s immediate plans this spring — to pick up the slack.

DETROIT — After facing the Detroit Tigers 10 days ago, Washington Nationals starter Jordan Zimmermann expressed that every opposing pitcher would ideally like to do — and, at the same time, knows is a nearly impossible task.

“They have one of the best lineups in baseball. You have to be careful with every one of their hitters,” said Zimmermann, the Nats’ best pitcher this season, lamenting the hit by Miguel Cabrera that shot through the hole, accounting for the Tigers’ only run in a 3-1 loss, snapping his own personal 20-inning scoreless streak.

“The plan tonight was not to let (Prince) Fielder and Cabrera beat me and he got that ball through the hole. He’s a great hitter and you’re going to give up hits like that once in a while.”

Trust me, though — pitchers would much rather take their chances that they can get guys like Jhonny Peralta, Alex Avila, Omar Infante and even designated hitter Victor Martinez out, rather than tempt fate by pitching aggressively to Fielder or Cabrera.

Through the first 40 games of the season, though, most of those bottom-of-the-lineup guys have been holding their own.

That fact is why the Tigers’ offense has been so much better — vastly more balanced, at least — than it was a year ago.

They’ve done well enough that the Tigers went into Saturday night’s game tops in the majors in runs scored (212), hits (407), RBI (208), team batting average (.280), on-base percentage (.348) and second in OPS (on-base plus slugging, .790).

Detroit also has a streak of at least one extra-base hit in 34 straight games, the second-longest active streak in the big leagues.

Sure, a ton of that can be attributed to Cabrera and Fielder, who rank first and fifth respectively, in the big leagues in RBI. Cabrera is leading the planet in hitting (.376), connecting for a sickening .509 (27-for-53) average with runners in scoring position.

No question those two are deadly.

Tigers manager Jim Leyland’s called it the best combination of No. 3 and No. 4 hitters he’s ever managed. Pitcher Max Scherzer went a step further.

“That’s the best 3-4 hitting combination, maybe in the history of the game. You can put some other guys in there — if they’re not better, they’re right there with them,” said Scherzer (5-0), who basked in the offensive support to push his win streak to five games. “It’s just special to watch what they do, every single night. You see them every single day, and they come up with big hits, in clutch situations, and it just shows you how good they are, just how difficult it is to face our lineup.”

But two men cannot do it alone. Nor can three.

That’s what we saw last year, when Fielder, Cabrera and Austin Jackson had sensational years, only to have the Tigers score more than 60 fewer runs than a season prior, at a rate of nearly half a run less per game.

The reason? No support from the bottom of the lineup.

Peralta fell off from his All-Star pace of 2011. So did Avila.

Brennan Boesch was MIA. Delmon Young was no Martinez.

And nobody plugged into the holes in left field and second base produced consistently.

This year, when healthy, Andy Dirks has been contributing in left. Infante’s been there all year at second base, and Peralta seems to have rediscovered his stroke. And Martinez, who missed all of last season with a knee injury, may have more hard-hit balls for outs than anyone in baseball.

Now, as an opposing pitcher, there’s no breather once you get past Fielder, no letdown in the pressure you’re facing.

You have to worry about the bottom of the lineup, almost as much as the top, because those guys can beat you, too.

“It’s a team game. The big guys do it a lot, but they can’t do it every time,” said Dirks, who hit sixth most of the season, before getting the majority of the at-bats in the injured Jackson’s leadoff spot. “Sometimes, you gotta score in the bottom part of the order to win games.”

You can’t take the bottom-feeders, the ‘Catfish’ as Torii Hunter calls them, for granted.

“I’ve been around a long time. You hear about catfish, we call them bottom-feeders. That’s the bottom, they’ve been doing a great job,” Hunter said. “Great job.”

But won’t your big guys carry the team 80 to 90 percent of the time?

“A lot of times they won’t. I say less than that. I’d say about 60 percent, for the big guys. Nobody wants them to beat you. We don’t want them to beat us. They’ll put those guys on and get to the bottom feeders. And they’re the ones that make a big impact. In my career, that’s what I’ve seen. Playoffs, they’re important. In the playoffs, your big guys don’t do nothing, because they’re not going to let you beat them,” Hunter said.

“Those are the guys that are very important, very important. Cuz they’re going to pitch to those guys.”

This year, they’re beating people.

Entering Saturday, Peralta (.319) and Infante (.316) both sat just outside the top 10 in the American League in hitting. They rank just behind the Tigers’ Big Two in slugging, with a combined 22 extra-base hits.

Frequently a slow starter, Peralta was hitting around .260 at this time last year, before finishing the season in a slump, and with a .239 average.

“He’s using all fields a little bit more than normal, even though he’s a pull hitter,” Leyland said. “He’s having a real nice year.”

Infante’s doing better than that, helping the Tigers rank first in the AL in production from the No. 9 spot in the order, with a .299 average, 46 hits, 22 RBI and 16 extra-base hits from the final spot. He’s been doing well enough that he was the best option for Leyland to plug in at the injured Jackson’s leadoff spot against a left-handed pitcher.

It’s a big difference from last year, too, when Infante hit just .257 in 64 games with the Tigers last year after being traded by Miami.

Those two have done well enough that there’s been virtually no time for reserve infielder Ramon Santiago, who has started just eight of the Tigers’ 40 games, and just four this month.

“Yeah, Jhonny and Omar, they’ve been unbelievable. Hitting the ball every day, and coming through with the bottom of the lineup,” said Santiago after he started Tuesday, and contributed an RBI double.

“Skip, what’s he supposed to do? Those guys have been doing the job. I don’t complain about it. I don’t have much AB, but when I have a chance to play, I try to contribute. When those guys are hitting the ball, you gotta keep them in the lineup. ...

“I know I want to play, but sometimes you gotta think about the team. That’s the most important thing.”

It’s been the same thing with Matt Tuiasosopo, who has already almost doubled his career RBI total in just 24 games, and is hitting .375. Same thing with backup catcher Brayan Pena, who has chipped in eight RBI in 12 games played. Don Kelly already has as many home runs (and home-run robbing catches, too) as all of last season.

“Everybody here knows that I’m a big believer in playing everybody and getting everybody out there, and having everybody contribute,” Leyland said.

“One thing about it: When guys don’t play too much, you know for sure they’re really hungry, and they want to be in there, and they’re going to be bearing down and concentrating. Not that the other guys don’t, but when you play every day, it’s not easy to get out there every single day and be at your best. Doesn’t mean you’re not giving your best, but it’s hard to be at your best.”

When the top-of-the-lineup guys aren’t, the Catfish have been there to pick them up.

“You can’t expect Cabrera and Fielder to do it every night,” Leyland said. “On the nights they don’t do it, if the other parts of the order don’t help out, then you probably lose that game. ... Just chip in. ... You don’t have to carry us — just chip in.”

DETROIT — Al Alburquerque’s control was putting the Detroit Tigers in bad situations late in games.

Now, it’s put him in Toledo.

The team optioned the flighty right-handed reliever to Triple-A Toledo after Wednesday's loss, and recalled the contract of right-handed reliever Evan Reed on Thursday.

Claimed off waivers from the Marlins at the start of April, Reed was 0-1 with a 3.00 ERA in 21 innings of work at Toledo, striking out 28 and walking seven.

Alburquerque was 0-1 with a 3.14 ERA in 15 appearances for the Tigers, including taking the loss in Wednesday’s series finale with the Houston Astros.

Called upon to get the Tigers out of an eighth-inning jam Wednesday, Alburquerque struck out Houston’s Chris Carter with two on, getting him to chase a pitch out of the zone.

But then he walked J.D. Martinez to start the ninth, forcing manager Jim Leyland to pull him out of the game in favor of lefty Phil Coke, despite Houston’s lineup sporting switch hitters in four of the next five spots.

Coke gave up an RBI double to Carlos Corporan on the first pitch he threw, scoring pinch runner Brandon Barnes from first base.

“By my own admission, I didn’t feel real comfortable doing it, because of the switch-hitters, however you can’t let him walk ‘em. That’s depressing. If I’d have felt like he was going to throw the ball over the plate, or if he’d shown any signs that he was going to throw it over the plate, I’d have obviously left him in. When you’re having trouble, and bouncing the ball, that’s not real comfortable,” Leyland said, admitting it was one of the situations he’d been talking about earlier in the day, where one reliever’s struggles can put the manager in a situation to have to use another reliever he doesn’t want to, or one that might have to be inserted in a disadvantageous situation.

“Their team overall is better against left-handers, and Alburquerque has pretty good numbers against righties and lefties. If he was throwing strikes, obviously I would’ve left him in. But he was too wild today. Just too wild. He was bouncing balls to the guy he struck out. If the guy (Carter) takes that pitch, we might have been in trouble there.

“There was twofold: When you bring Coke, you figure you’re probably going to get strikes. And the pinch runner they bring in is probably going to steal.

“But, yes, that is one of those situations. We need Albie to get us through that inning.”

And he did not.

It was not the first time, either.

Alburquerque was one of the relievers who’d been putting the Tigers in bad situations, even when they were ahead.

Sometimes, you just need a guy to get outs, even if it’s not the highest leverage situations.

“The thing that we gotta get over the hump, is that when you have to bridge that little inning or so, when you have a bigger lead, we have to make sure that the guys who are bridging that inning don’t make you get your other guys up. That’s really important,” Leyland said.

“That’s happened a couple of times, where we tried to bridge it with a bigger lead, but the guy walked a couple of guys — and I’m not indicating anybody in particular, I’m just making a point — that guy walks a couple of guys, and you end up getting somebody up you didn’t want to get up.

“And that’s not good. We gotta get better at that.”

It’s forced the Tigers to use their best relievers — including closer Jose Valverde in Tuesday night’s game — when they might otherwise not have, just to bail out their compadres.

“That’s huge when you got a four- or five-run lead with a couple innings to go, and then sometimes you’ll see — like last night, even though we decided we were going to pitch him (Valverde), you have a guy ready in case you blow a game open sometimes, and you put somebody else in. You gotta be prepared for that,” Leyland said.

“But that guy bridging that gap to give those guys a day off when they need a day off, and should get a day off, that guy has to come in and close down a five-run game, without putting you in jeopardy by walking a couple, or giving up a hit, and ending up with a run in and two guys on. Because then you have to use your other guy anyway.

“Sometimes you just say, ‘What the hell, I’m going to use him anyway. I’m not going to mess around.’ You got a game in hand, you want to win it. You don’t know what tomorrow’s going to bring, for sure.

“That’s why everybody on your pitching staff is really important, because the job’s different. It’s not always a hold or a save or a win. Sometimes, it’s just give us a few outs, without forcing us to get somebody up who we don’t want to get up.”

Leyland recently said that he’d all but eliminated the idea that Alburquerque was a multiple-inning reliever, and Wednesday he was asked if the issue was sitting down in the dugout at the end of one inning, then having to come back out to start a new inning.

“Can’t answer that. He got one out, and went back out, faced a right-hand hitter to start the inning. But he just didn’t throw the ball over the plate. He got the strikeout, but in actuality, the guy swung at a pitch in the dirt. The guy lays off that pitch, he walks that guy,” Leyland said.

“I don’t know. Maybe not getting enough work, or whatever. I don’t know the answer. Right now, he’s struggling a little bit with his control, certainly.”

And that’s why he’s in Toledo, rather than Texas, with the rest of the team.

With the Tigers trailing by two runs in the ninth inning of Wednesday's series finale, and the bottom of the order due up against Astros right-handed reliever Jose Veras, baserunners were the key to starting a potential rally.

For that reason, manager Jim Leyland lifted left fielder Matt Tuiasosopo — who was 3-for-3 in the game — for pinch hitter Don Kelly. Yes, Tuiasosopo is right-handed, and Kelly left-handed, presenting a more advantageous match-up, but it's deeper than that.

"No, I did not (consider letting Tuiasosopo hit). I thought Kelly would be good for that guy, and might be more apt to take a walk. We were taking in that situation. Then hopefully get him and (Brayan) Pena on, and hit (Andy) Dirks for the other kid, for (Avisail) Garcia. I wasn’t going to bunt, I was going to hit. I was going to let Dirks hit," Leyland said.

"If it was just one swing of the bat to win it, or to tie it with one single home run, might be a different case. But in that case, I was looking more to hopefully get a baserunner.

"Pena was taking, Kelly was taking. Pena walked, Omar (Infante) walked."

Veras actually loaded the bases by hitting Torii Hunter on the wrist, but got Miguel Cabrera to fly out to deep right-center field to end the threat. 

Loading up on hitters who would get on base and extend the inning worked, but Cabrera just didn't get quite enough of the ball to get them all in, and the Tigers lost, 7-5.

DETROIT — Jose Valverde does not understand the infatuation with his split-finger fastball.

He got over his infatuation with it years ago.

Still, it’s the daily question he has to answer.

Where did it go? When is it coming back? How often will he use it?

Wednesday the Tigers’ closer got a bit irked by the continual line of questioning about the supposedly Missing In Action pitch, which he has admittedly thrown infrequently since returning to the team.

“Right now, I don’t need to throw my split-finger every pitch, because I have a lot more pitches,” he tried to patiently explain. “When I play in Arizona, I had to throw my split and my fastball a lot, because I don’t throw sinker. Right now, so far I throw sinker and (four-seam fastball).”

According to Fangraphs’ compilation of PITCHf/x data, he’s thrown the splitter 6.5 percent of the time. Out of 103 pitches thrown in his first seven appearances, only seven have been split-finger fastballs.

Three of them were doozies he uncorked in Tuesday night’s ninth inning, two of them pitches that the Astros’ Chris Carter and Carlos Pena took for called third strikes.

“Last night, he threw a couple splitters, and we were tickled about that. Two of them were pretty darned good, and the other one was just OK. But that’s good,” manager Jim Leyland said.

“On Sunday, against Cleveland, because it was cold, he just couldn’t feel it. Just couldn’t feel it with his fingers, that’s why he didn’t throw it.”

In all the discussions of where, when, why and how soon, that’s been the one common denominator, the one reason given for the lack of usage of the pitch: Cold weather. Psychologically, you tend to shy away from a pitch when you know conditions won’t allow you to throw it properly.

“Once the weather warms up, I don’t think that’ll be a factor. But I think in cold weather, when you don’t get a feel for it, yeah. It’s a tricky pitch to throw. It’s not an easy pitch to throw. And when you split your fingers like you do (to throw it), you don’t really get a good feel for the ball,” Leyland said.

“Hopefully, we’ll get past that.”

Numbers say that Valverde will probably throw it more — but still not a ton.

And certainly not as much as he did once.

His first year in Detroit, Valverde threw the split-finger 52.5 percent of the time, and his four-seam fastball 47.5 percent, according to Fangraphs. In 2011, his usage of the split-finger dropped to 20.1 percent. Last season, it was down to 17.6 percent.

While he doesn’t throw the slider or change-up that he used in his early years, he’s added a sinker (two-seam fastball) to the repertoire the last two seasons.

That was one of the biggest concerns (or at least that’s the way it was interpreted), when the Tigers first thought about re-signing the veteran, despite saying early in the offseason they had no interest in a closer who’d essentially become a one-pitch pitcher.

There was some thought that it might have been a concerted effort by Valverde, who logged more than 200 combined innings over the last three seasons, to try and reduce the stress on his arm by not throwing the splitter as much. He says no.

“Depends on how you throw the split-finger,” he said of the stress the pitch can sometimes add to a pitcher’s arm. “A lot of people throw the split-finger, and it’s more like a forkball. My split is like a sinker.”

There’s also the factor of decreased velocity.

While his four-seam fastball sat around 95 mph during his two seasons with the Astros and his first here in Detroit, it dropped to an average of 93.9 in 2011, and 93.4 in 2012. It’s been at 92.6 so far this season.

Some of that, of course, is due to the lack of a true spring training.

Valverde joined the Tigers on April 23, after several outings in extended spring training and Class A.

The 35-year-old Valverde, though, said he feels fine, physically.

“I think everybody’s different,” he said. “I think I throw all my pitches, sometimes they’re not working like normal. And sometimes it’s working.”

While he’s still the team’s closer, Leyland wants to give Valverde every chance he can in non-save situations to work out some of the bugs that a veteran could normally smooth out in the spring. At the same time, the manager has been very reticent to push Valverde out there too frequently, and do something that might hurt him.

“We think we need to get him in better pitching shape. Not physical shape — he looks good, physically. He’s not too heavy or out of shape physically. ... Valverde’s in good shape, but not probably pitching shape. ... We felt like it’s important to get him out there and pitch him a little bit, get his arm strength up,” Leyland said.

“We think we gotta pitch him a little bit, but at the same time, you don’t want to hurt him. It’s kind of a balance.”

Monday’s appearance came just two days after Valverde blew his first save chance of the season.

“I want to be perfect, but I can’t be perfect,” the closer said, admitting that he set an unattainable standard with his 49-for-49 season in 2011 — but also noting that he did that without employing his split-finger as a primary weapon.

All the blown save did was again send warning bells off for those who haven’t forgotten his poor finish to the 2012 season.

Not necessarily for his manager, though.

“He looks good. He had a borderline pitch to (Cleveland’s Jason) Giambi the other day, 2-2. I’m tickled with him. He’s in good spirits. I think he’s in pretty good physical shape — probably not tip-top pitching shape yet,” Leyland said. “But I’m happy with him.”

If you’ve ever been unfortunate enough to be in an auto accident, you know the feeling.

It was one of those plays that you can see coming, in sickening slow motion.

And there’s nothing you can do to stop it.

Chasing a shallow pop fly off the bat of Jhonny Peralta in Monday’s game, Houston second baseman Jose Altuve collided face-first with right fielder Jimmy Paredes.

“You could see it coming. Where I sit there, I’m looking straight at it,” Tigers manager Jim Leyland said. “Just prior to it happening, (bench coach Gene Lamont) said, ‘They’re going to run into each other.’ Sure enough, they did.”

The ball, sandwiched between the two, fell harmlessly to the ground.

“I couldn’t listen to him when he called for the ball," Altuve told MLB.com. “I think we were calling (for it at) the same time. You know, that happens, but I think we’re going to be OK.”

Altuve fell to the ground, too — not so harmlessly, though — going down like a ton of bricks. He lay motionless for a while, before being helped up and off the field.

The Astros’ All-Star second baseman exited the game with a subluxation — or partial dislocation — of the right jaw. While he said afterward he’d probably be OK to play Tuesday, Altuve ended up being placed on the Bereavement List following the death of his grandmother, and will miss between three and seven days.

It’s hardly uncommon for that type of play to happen, but teams try to minimize the chances, anyway.

“We work on that drill in spring training. We call it the pop-up drill. We actually shoot the ball up between the infielders and outfielders, and make them work on that play. We usually tell the outfielders, ‘Take charge, unless ...’ The general rule of thumb on that — and they couldn’t help it on that one, because he was running after it. Normally you see the infielder, and we have it that, if he knows he’s got it, he uses his hands (waves), and yells, and hopefully the center fielder, or whoever it is, hears it,” Leyland said.

“But that was one of those in-between ones that you can’t help. Just one of those freak things that happen now and then.”