The Toledo Blade's John Wagner reported Saturday night that left-handed reliever Blaine Hardy had been called up to the big leagues after the Mud Hens' game.

Detroit's bullpen was taxed Saturday night, as four different relievers combined to throw 83 pitches over a three-inning span, as what was once an 11-1 game turn into a 12-9 win.

A non-roster invitee to spring training, the left-handed Hardy has appeared in 20 games for the Toledo Mud Hens, posting a 2.68 ERA with 53 strikeouts and 13 walks in 47 innings pitched. He gives the Tigers something they've lacked since Luke Putkonen went on the disabled list — a long man.

No immediate indication was given who might be leaving the Tigers' roster to make room for Hardy.

There are several options.

If it's as a replacement for an as-of-yet undisclosed injury to any one of the Tigers relievers, then the move is self-explanatory. Ian Krol, who went 1 1/3 innings for his first big-league save, said he was battling through soreness in his biceps tendon, but that it was not serious enough to keep him from pitching tomorrow.

Corey Knebel is the low man on the totem pole. He's made six appearances, posting an ERA of 6.75 and a WHIP of 1.650. He's also one of the three relievers who did not pitch, so it's not likely to be Knebel, if this is just a move to bring a fresh arm in.

Lefty Phil Coke, always the object of scrutiny, had posted a 1.80 ERA in six appearances so far this month before Saturday, when he gave up three runs in the eighth inning on three hits.

Evan Reed has posted a 8.22 ERA in his eight appearances since May 22, including one earned run allowed Saturday, when he couldn't get out of the seventh inning. That span started a day after the Detroit Police Department requested a warrant from the Wayne County Prosecutor's Office in an ongoing sexual assault investigation involving Reed.

[UPDATE: The Tigers called up Hardy Sunday morning, and optioned Knebel to Triple-A Toledo.]

The Tigers sent left-hander Andy Oliver down to Triple-A Toledo on Thursday, meaning the battle for the fifth starter job — which started out with six internal contestants — is down to just two: Drew Smyly or Duane Below.

Oliver, who'd seemed to overcome some of his control demons that plagued him last season — at both the big-league level and at Triple-A Toledo — earlier this spring, put back-to-back shaky outings together in his last two Grapefruit League starts.

"Nobody's down on Andy Oliver. We just didn't feel like, at this time, he was the guy," Tigers manager Jim Leyland told reporters Thursday, as MLive's Chris Iott passed along on Twitter.

At this point, it looks like it'll either be Smyly or Below heading north with the team to start the season. Smyly, who threw well in Wednesday's start against the Cardinals in Jupiter, Fla., is scheduled for one more spring start on Monday. Below is scheduled to pitch Friday.

But it could be both — or neither. General manager Dave Dombrowski could still decide to go outside the organization for a starter — "My general manager has a tendency to surprise you," manager Jim Leyland said, after refusing to rule out the possibility that the Tigers would look for an external solution — or the Tigers could take both north, with one — Below, almost assuredly — in the bullpen as a long reliever.

And there's this to factor in, as well. The Tigers won't need a fifth starter right off the bat, given the number of off (weather) days built in to the first few series. Last year's fifth starter, Phil Coke, did not start his first game until April 9, making two relief appearances in the season-opening series in New York.

So what would Leyland like to have happen, ideally?

"I gave you enough hints through the course of the spring what I’d ideally like to have ... but, it doesn’t mean it’s going to play out that way," Leyland said, in response to verbal fishing expeditions by reporters over the weekend. "When you have four or five right-handed starters, you would probably like someone to pitch long from the left side. But it doesn’t mean you have him. That doesn’t mean that’s going to be the decision. So don’t mark that down. Could it be? It could be. But ..."

While the Tigers still have a decision to make between the more experienced, veteran Below — who started twice in 14 MLB appearances with the Tigers last season — and the inexperienced but composed Smyly — who did not pitch above Double-A in his first professional season last year — there is an upshot to the whole situation.

The Toledo rotation (as pointed out by Mud Hens beat writer John Wagner) will be stacked with former candidates for the fifth starter job: Oliver, Jacob Turner, Adam Wilk and Casey Crosby.

When Tigers pitcher Phil Coke puts on a Toledo Mud Hens uniform on Friday, and trots to the mound in Scranton, Pa., for a rehab start against the New York Yankees’ Triple-A affiliate, it will seem like almost any other day at the office.

He’ll have a familiar coworker in the Hens lineup with him, after all.

Magglio Ordonez, who has been on the disabled list since May 13 with weakness in his surgically-repaired ankle, will begin his rehab stint with Toledo the same day, the Tigers announced Wednesday.

Even though Tigers manager Jim Leyland has tried to stay out of the discussion, leaving it between Ordonez and the training staff — “I just stay out of that stuff. ... Whenever they tell me Magglio’s ready, he’s ready,” he said — there’s no question that he’s been encouraged by watching Ordonez take batting practice on the field at Comerica Park the last few days.
“He felt fine the last couple of days, felt really good. And drove the ball pretty good. Just wait and see,” Leyland said after one session.

“He feels great, but is a couple of days swinging going to change how he feels? I wouldn’t think so, but I don’t know,” the manager noted after another.

Struggling off and on with his ankle in the cold weather early this season, Ordonez was hitting just .171 in 26 games before notifying the Tigers’ medical staff that he wanted to shut it down.
He was re-examined by Dr. Phillip Kwong, the surgeon who repaired his broken ankle last August, in Los Angeles three weeks ago, but has been rehabbing in Detroit since then.

Coke, who has been on the DL with a bruised bone in his foot, is scheduled to return to the Tigers’ active roster after his lone rehab start. Once he comes back, the Tigers will send left-handed starter Andy Oliver back to Toledo.

Ordonez’s return could make for a more interesting roster decision. Do the Tigers demote Andy Dirks, who’s hit .281 since taking Ordonez’s spot on the roster? Or Casper Wells (.228)? Or infielder Danny Worth, who may be less needed, once Ordonez’s presence in the outfield rotation pushes Ryan Raburn into the second base role full time?

Just wait and see on that, too, I guess.

There’s been a lot of chatter lately that the Tigers should — some blogs have even put a timetable on the proposition, labeling it a “will” instead of a “should” — put Phil Coke back in the bullpen, and bring up one of two minor-league lefties, Andy Oliver or Charlie Furbush, to take his spot in the rotation.

I know that seems like a consensus move, but consider me one that doesn’t think that will cure all the Tigers’ ills.

Coke gave up just three hits on just 78 pitches through seven scoreless innings against the Red Sox Wednesday, matching his longest career outing. In his last start, against the Twins, he went just 5 2/3, but Leyland considered it an improvement from his three previous starts — two rocky outings against the Mariners and one against the Indians — after two stellar outings to begin his career as a starter.

The lefty went toe-to-toe with Kansas City’s Bruce Chen in his first start of the season on April 9, then got his only win of the season by outdueling the Athletics’ Gio Gonzalez on April 14.

To recap, as a starter, Coke’s had three really good outings, three pretty bad outings and two that fall somewhere in the middle. Not bad for a guy in his first year as a starter at the MLB level, right?

What’s to say that either Furbush or Oliver would do the same, or better?

Granted, both are tearing up the International League at Triple-A Toledo.

And granted, both are probably more integral to the Tigers’ long-term plans for the starting rotation than Coke.

But why make a move that — at best — would be a wash on one end to incompletely fix a problem on the other. Coke was stellar out of the bullpen last year as a situational lefty, but that’s not what the Tigers’ biggest need is right now.

They’ve struggled all year long to find a seventh-inning guy (remember, that was supposed to be Joel Zumaya’s job, if he was healthy), and now high-priced free agent Joaquin Benoit has had to be moved out of the set-up role because of some inexplicable ineffectiveness.

And I’m not sure that you plug a lefty like Coke — who has an ERA of 1.83 and a batting average against of .172 against lefties, but is just 5.28/.287 against right-handed hitters — into a situation where lefty-righty matchups are at a premium.

Could it be a short-term patch? Sure.

Maybe you get two or three weeks out of it, and then Benoit magically gets his head right, and everything goes back to normal. The Tigers have 16.5 million reasons to hope that happens.

But do you really want to risk retarding the development of Furbush or Oliver — and possibly even Coke — as a starter to make that happen? Is it better to need Coke as a mop-up guy in the fourth inning, because of a confidence-crushing blowup by a rookie, than to hope that your starters — who’ve all done a pretty good job of it recently, by the way — go deep enough in the game to get it to closer Jose Valverde at the back end of the ‘pen?

If the long-term plan is to have Coke go back to the bullpen — i.e. he was just a stopgap for this year’s rotation — then you don’t worry about that part, and you only have to decide if one of the two youngsters is ready.

But that’s not what the Tigers have said they envisioned, when they asked for Coke to be included in the package from the Yankees in the three-team trade two offseasons ago. They saw an eventual starter, who could be a bullpen guy for now.

And, let’s face it: The bullpen, while maddeningly inconsistent, is not the Tigers’ ONLY problem.

The offense has been, at best, spotty.

The Tigers’ starters wouldn’t have to chew their fingernails when they turn a slim, one-run lead over to the set-up guys, if they’d gotten a bit more run support.

If the Tigers look to swing a trade in the next month or so, it could be for another bullpen arm — one better suited to the setup role than Coke — but it’s more likely to be a bat that ensures that you don’t have to use a bullpen arm to safeguard a 3-1 lead, simply by helping make it a 5-1 lead.

As they’re currently set up — and with current performance — the Tigers are admittedly incomplete. But making one paper switch to put Coke in the bullpen does not put the last puzzle piece in place.

It merely moves a puzzle piece from one hole to another.