The D-Train Needs Maintenance

After seeing Dontrelle Willis slip and fall on the mound on Friday night at U.S. Cellular Field, I was generally scared for the guy. The way his leg bent, well, it just wasn't natural. As someone who's had a similar type of injury occur to my knee while in high school playing football (Though mine wasn't from slipping on a mound as much as it was from 275 pounds of Henry Hopkins rolling over my leg in practice. Skip a meal, man!), I immediately felt Dontrelle's pain.

Luckily the worst fears were averted when today's MRI results showed no structural damage, just a hyper-extended knee. Unfortunately (or fortunately considering his performance so far this season), that doesn't mean Dontrelle will be able to escape a stop on the disabled list for the first time in his career.

"You know he's going to miss a start, and we don't want to take any chances with it," team president/general manager Dave Dombrowski said. "Really, at this point, we can't. It is a hyperextension, so hopefully in the 15 days, he'll be ready. But we'll see.

"He asked us to wait [to put him on the DL] and see what happens, but you could tell he's walking gingerly, and we just don't want to take a chance. You can't take a chance on that, because his arm is healthy. I've seen many guys in their time when their knee's bothering them a little bit, change their delivery a little bit and hurt their arm."

Obviously the Tigers need another pitcher on the disabled list as much as Britney Spears needs another kid, but as Dombrowski said above, there really is no other option at this point. The Tigers currently plan on calling up Armando Galarraga (I've no idea if he's related to Andres, but for some reason, I hope he is.) from Triple-A Toledo to take Dontrelle's spot in the rotation.