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 Detroit Tigers changed up their catching depth in the minor leagues a bit, acquiring former Kansas City Royals backstop Manny Pina from the Seattle Mariners for a player to be named later.

Backup catcher Luis Exposito was released to make room on the roster at Detroit’s Triple-A affiliate in Toledo. Originally tweeted out by the Jackson Generals' account, the move was confirmed by changes to the transaction page and the Mud Hens’ roster page on the respective web sites.

Pina, 27, is a native of Venezuela, and started out in the Texas Rangers organization after signing as an amateur free agent in 2004. Traded to the Royals in 2009, Pina played four games with the team’s big-league club in 2011, and one in 2012.

He has three career hits — two of them doubles — in 16 at-bats at the MLB level, and has hit .249 in 615 minor-league games. Pina was hitting .279 with four doubles and two homers in 17 games at Double-A Jackson, after being demoted from Triple-A Tacoma after four games.

DETROIT — The Detroit Tigers clearly needed help at shortstop all season long, but hesitated to rush one o their two minor-league prospects to fill the gap.

Until now.

According to the Minor League Baseball (@MiLB) Twitter account, the Tigers have promoted Eugenio Suarez from Triple-A Toledo.

The Tigers have not yet announced the promotion, nor the corresponding move. [UPDATED: The Tigers recalled the contract of Suarez from Toledo, and designated Danny Worth for assignment.]

Suarez started the season at Double-A Erie, but was promoted to the team’s top farm club on May 21.

Suarez hit .284 in 42 games at Double-A Erie (.347 on-base percentage, .503 slugging percentage, .850 OPS) with 14 doubles and six home runs. He hit .302 (.404 OBP, .535 SLG, .939 OPS) with two home runs and four doubles in 12 games at Toledo.

DETROIT — No doubt about it, Corey Knebel is one of the Detroit Tigers’ hottest minor-league commodities.

But when the Tigers decided Thursday they were bringing him up, there was one snag: He was not yet on the 40-man roster.

The Tigers took care of that Friday, when they actually made the transaction, outrighting the contract of Francisco Martinez to Double-A Erie. Robbie Ray was sent to Triple-A Toledo after Thursday’s start to clear room on the active roster.

According to MLB.com’s preseason list, Knebel ranked as Detroit’s 16th-best prospect (Ray was No. 3). Martinez used to be perceived that well.

When he was included in the trade to bring Doug Fister to the Tigers from the Seattle Mariners, Martinez was ranked as the No. 4 prospect in the Detroit farm system. After a disappointing stint in the Mariners’ system, Martinez was sent back to Detroit in trade, after being designated for assignment last June.

The Tigers had to designate Quintin Berry for assignment to add Martinez to the 40-man at that time, and ended up losing him, before seeing him again in the playoffs with the Red Sox.

After hitting .295 with 13 doubles and three home runs with Hi-A Lakeland in his return to the Tigers’ system last season, Martinez is hitting .228 with one home run and five doubles in 37 games with Erie this year.

No matter the solution the Detroit Tigers have tried at shortstop this season, they’ve never acted like they were permanently married to it.

They traded a pair of players to acquire Andrew Romine and Alex Gonzalez, releasing the latter after just nine games. Danny Worth has gotten a shot — but not an endorsement.

And now — the same day that free-agent Stephen Drew re-signed with the Boston Red Sox — the next two who might get a chance to fill that gap for the Tigers might both be at Triple-A Toledo.

Eugenio Suarez was promoted after Tuesday’s game, going from Double-A Erie to the Mud Hens, where he’ll pair with Hernan Perez.

Manager Brad Ausmus told reporters he was “very satisfied” with the play of his current shortstops, despite the fact that the position had produced a combined batting average of .189, a slugging percentage of .220 and an OPS of .470.

Suarez went 3-for-5 in the Seawolves’ 7-6 loss Tuesday, driving in three runs, and hitting his 14th double. In 42 games, he hit .284, slugged .503 and posted an .850 OPS. Dixon Machado was sent to Erie in the corresponding move.

Worth got the nod over either Suarez or Perez when Gonzalez was released, primarily because the Tigers didn’t want to force either of them into a platoon situation.

“Hopefully this combination will help us, and we can continue to analyze our situation. We’ve got, again, two young guys that we’re just not quite ready to bring up and ready to let them play, but they’re playing very, very well for us,” Tigers general manager Dave Dombrowski said at the time.

“It gives them an opportunity to continue to play on day-in, day-out basis, which we think will benefit our organization in the long run.”

The long run may not be that far off, at this point.

DETROIT — Once the post-draft experiment with converting Corey Knebel to a starter was scrapped, you kind of had to expect that he was going to be a fast-riser through the Detroit Tigers’ system.

The former University of Texas closer, drafted by the Tigers in the sandwich round of last summer’s MLB Draft, was moved up to Triple-A Toledo after last night’s game for the Double-A Erie Seawolves.

Knebel, 22, had 15 saves for West Michigan in 31 games after last year’s draft, posting an 0.87 ERA, and striking out 41 in 31 innings. This year at Erie, he’s 3-0 with a 1.20 ERA in 11 appearances, striking out 23 and walking eight.

It was only a matter of time.

With as much as the Detroit Tigers’ bullpen has struggled of late, it was no surprise Saturday when the Tigers called rookie Charlie Furbush up from Triple-A Toledo, taking the place of lefty Brad Thomas on the active roster.

The veteran Thomas, who had his elbow “lock up” while warming up Friday, was sent to the 15-day disabled list with elbow inflammation. The move was retroactive to May 11, the day after Thomas’ last appearance.

Now the only question is, will Furbush — who International League in strikeouts (55) as a starter at Toledo — will move into Thomas’ spot in the bullpen to fortify the relief staff, or push reliever-turned-starter Phil Coke out of the rotation and back into last year’s role?
Thanks to the versatility of several Tigers fielders, the team was able to carry 12 pitchers on the roster coming out of spring training, and this move doesn’t change that ratio.
Having the extra arms has not helped so far, however.

The Tigers’ bullpen is dead last in the big leagues with a ghastly 5.91 ERA, with opposing batters hitting a sizzling .283 against it. It’s resulted in nine losses by the bullpen, third-worst in the majors.

And carrying the extra arms has meant that some relievers have gone more than a week without a call, necessitating the dreaded concept of “getting work” in games that have gotten out of hand.

That type of mop-up duty has been the primary role this season for the Aussie journeyman Thomas, who has had 10 of his 12 appearances come with the Tigers trailing. He’s not done well in those situations, however, sporting an ERA of 9.00 and allowing a ridiculous 10 of 12 inherited runners to score.

Furbush might not be the Tigers’ highest-ranking pitching prospect — right-hander Jacob Turner was No. 21 on Baseball America’s Top 100 Prospects list, while Furbush’s Toledo rotation-mate Andy Oliver was No. 87 — but he’d pitched like he was this season.

Second in all of Minor League Baseball in strikeouts last year, the 25-year-old Furbush had two complete games and a shutout among his eight starts at Toledo, sporting an ERA of 2.91 — a bit bloated by one bad outing — a strikeout-to-walk ratio of 55/14 and a WHIP of 0.93.

Oliver, who hasn't been far behind Furbush, will likely be the next call-up by the Tigers, as they continue to seek options for a bullpen that's been hemorrhaging runs.

DETROIT — Scott Sizemore tried not to think about Detroit much during his exile to Triple-A Toledo this spring.

He knew something was up when he was scratched from the Mud Hens’ lineup just before Monday night’s game, though.

“When I went in the clubhouse to hit in the cage ... I saw Nev (Mud Hens manager Phil Nevin), he kind of gave me the ‘come here.’ And then he walked down to tell Argenis Diaz ... that he was going to play second. I kind of had a good idea at that point, but I wasn’t officially told until after the game,” Sizemore said of his call-up to the Tigers, unexpected to everyone but him, apparently.

The Opening Day second baseman for the Tigers a year ago, Sizemore lasted just 30 games before losing his job, and getting sent to the minors. This spring, he couldn’t figure out a way to reclaim it, losing the competition with Will Rhymes for the job.

But Sizemore didn’t sulk. Rather than concentrate on what could have been, or could someday be, the 26-year-old chose to focus on what was.

And he didn’t sit by the phone, waiting for the call-up.

“To be honest, I didn’t really even think about it. I didn’t let the stuff I couldn’t control affect me, just focus on the stuff on the field, and it seems to have paid off, thus far,” Sizemore said Tuesday, as he wandered around the Tigers locker room, collecting high-fives, fist-bumps and hugs, and trying to find his locker.
“I think anytime you worry about things you can’t control, it takes a little bit of the control away from you. My mindset was just to do everything I could on the field, and whatever happened with the front office up here, is just out of my control. Can’t do anything about it.”

But Sizemore did do something about it: He tore the cover off the ball in Toledo, leading the International League with a .408 average. His extra-base pop — seven doubles, one triple, two homers — was part of the reason the Tigers called him up after Monday’s game, the first step in an attempt to fix the feeble top of their batting order.

“Just knowing what I had to do to get back up here,” Sizemore said of his focus. “You’re not going to get handed the job. You’ve gotta kind of force the issue. That was my mentality, just go down there, work as hard as I could, do everything I could to earn an other shot.”

Last year, that shot quickly slipped away. He was hitting .206 when he was sent down to Toledo on May 15. He didn’t return to the bigs until the September call-ups.

In the interim, Carlos Guillen took over the job until he got injured, then Rhymes shined in his opportunity the rest of the way.

That, as much as anything, was what got Rhymes the job in Spring Training. While Rhymes outhit Sizemore on the Grapefruit League circuit (.328 to .243), much of that difference was in the final few games of the spring, when Rhymes already had the job in hand.

And while Rhymes was hitting just .221 when he was optioned to Toledo after Monday’s game, manager Jim Leyland was insistent that it was more a matter of circumstance than performance.

“It’s not like Will Rhymes did so bad. I certainly don’t want to indicate to anybody that we’re blaming all of our offensive woes on Will Rhymes. That’s not the case. The case in this matter is, we’re looking for a little punch,” Leyland said of Rhymes, who’s never going to be confused for a power hitter. “So he kind of caught the short end of the stick, to be honest with you.”

Rhymes’ advantage over Sizemore — aside from defense — might be in his fit for the No. 2 spot in the order, where you want someone who can move a runner into scoring position for the big RBI guys. Problem was, Rhymes didn’t have that opportunity too often, considering the struggles of leadoff man Austin Jackson in getting on base.

Sizemore may be a step below Rhymes, defensively, but he’s making up ground, thanks to a return to health. He missed time in the 2008 season with a wrist injury, then returned to earn honors as the Tigers’ Minor League Player of the Year in 2009, before a fractured ankle ended his season prematurely.

It’s taken him more than a year to get his mobility and flexibility completely back, and regain the range robbed from him by the injuries.

Now the test will be to continue his torrid hitting, something that was even more unexpected to Sizemore than the call-up.

“To be honest, you’d say yeah (it’s unexpected). You can’t ever expect to hit like that going into the season. Of course, I know I’m capable of doing that, it’s just being mentally focused, and it’s not really necessarily looking at my results, but what I do with the at-bat. It just keeps kind of going well for me,” said Sizemore, struggling to remember a time in his career that he’d hit so well for so long, and settling on a three-week span in Class A.

Even if it doesn’t keep up at quite that same pace, he’s still reasonably sure that Tigers fans haven’t seen the real Scott Sizemore yet.

“I’d like to think so. I think I’ve got a lot more in the tank,” he said. “It’s just putting your best foot forward, and showing everybody else what you’ve got.”

Short hops
• New York starter CC Sabathia has been up-and-down in his career at Comerica Park, starting 6-0 in his first eight starts there, but going 1-4 with a 5.63 ERA since 2006. Entering Tuesday night, he had not beaten the Tigers on the road as a Yankee.

• Alex Avila’s two home runs Monday night marked his second multi-homer game of his short major league career. According to the Elias Sports Bureau, he became just the second Tigers catcher in 15 years (Pudge Rodriguez, Aug. 8, 2004) to hit two home runs in a home game. Avila came into Tuesday night’s game leading all MLB catchers in RBI (21) and total bases (48), ranking second in home runs (5) and triples (1), third in doubles (6) and runs (12). He’s hitting .309 and slugging .593, both totals best among full-time catchers.

• The Tigers continue to pound out doubles, hitting at least one in 27 of 29 games after Ramon Santiago’s two-bagger Monday night.