Jackson providing added bonus - helping protect Porcello

Jackson providing added bonus
Early success, deep starts helping Tigers protect Porcello

By Jason Beck / MLB.com

05/18/09 5:00 PM ET

DETROIT -- The workroom at baseball's Winter Meetings was emptying out by the time Tigers president/general manager Dave Dombrowski walked in and announced the Edwin Jackson trade with the Rays. But it was there, with a small group of reporters, that he uttered the line of the deal.

"I'm starting to feel a lot better about our starting pitchers," Dombrowski said that night.

He didn't misspeak. He meant the plural form.

By contrast, Tigers camp was already abuzz with the chance of Rick Porcello making the rotation long before Dombrowski announced the decision in the final days of Spring Training. They felt they had the plan and the support to work in the 20-year-old without abusing him.

Without Jackson, one could argue, the Tigers could not have taken the chance on Porcello. They're now reaping the benefits from both. Along with the resurgent Justin Verlander, they're the main reasons why Detroit's starting pitching has transformed from last year's weakness into this season's strength.

They're separate pitchers and different styles, but their successes and troubles have an impact on each other.

"It all meshes in together," manager Jim Leyland said Sunday morning.

What Dontrelle Willis symbolized, rightly or not, to last year's disaster of a season, Jackson arguably represents to the Tigers' resurgence this year. Like Willis, Jackson was a gifted young pitcher with questions on whom Detroit took a risk and gave up young talent. In Jackson's case, he didn't have nearly the track record of Willis.

So far, Jackson's going almost unnoticed compared to Willis for his comeback or Verlander for his dominance. Looking at the American League pitching leaders, though, Jackson is about to draw attention.

The only pitcher in the AL with a lower ERA than Jackson's 2.42 entering Monday is Zack Greinke. Jackson's .263 on-base percentage against ranks third in the AL and fifth in the Majors. His .222 batting average allowed and 7.44 hits per nine innings rank in the AL's top 20, and his 3.73 strikeout-to-walk ratio is just outside the top 10.

Those types of numbers have always been within Jackson's grasp, but he had never put them up with consistency, even for a month-long stretch such as this. It's the latter that was the question facing Tigers scouts when they reported back to Dombrowski about him. Was his 2008 season in Tampa Bay a byproduct of the Rays' success, or a reason for it?

"Edwin was always regarded as a blue-chip prospect," Dombrowski said. "The feeling of our scouts that had seen him pitch was he was in a spot where he starting to make strides to become a pitcher rather than a thrower. They saw him make progress last year."

The Tigers didn't feel they had to add starting pitching. If they hadn't gotten Jackson, Dombrowski said, they had a list of other candidates. But it wasn't very long, and given financial considerations, it probably wasn't deep.

"I don't know where we would have gone from there," Dombrowski said.

Leyland gives all the credit to scouts for doing their homework. Yet even if Jackson couldn't pitch this well, Leyland believed he would still pitch deep.

"From my standpoint, I knew one thing: He was an inning-eater," Leyland said. "And that's what we needed."

Leyland had been looking for more innings from his starters since 2007, when another young rookie, Andrew Miller, cracked the rotation. This year, however, innings were all the more important. Porcello was a long shot when Detroit swung the trade for Jackson, but Joel Zumaya's and Jeremy Bonderman's comebacks, Willis' overhaul and Nate Robertson's tweaks were real.

Porcello pitched his way from possibility to reality, but his workload was always a question. No matter how well he pitched, the only way to make his situation work in the big leagues this year was to watch his pitch counts.

Leyland and the Tigers' staff strongly believed Verlander could save the bullpen some innings, but that wasn't enough.

"It all meshes in together," Leyland said. "You can normally protect one [pitcher]. You really can't protect two or three. That's just the way it is. If Verlander and Jackson are going five innings, that makes my job a lot more stressful."

Last week provided a perfect example. Wednesday's 13-inning loss at Minnesota left Detroit with a short bullpen for Thursday's series finale. Verlander lasted 6 1/3 innings over a season-high 122 pitches. One night later, Jackson pitched four innings Friday against the A's, waited an hour and a half through a rain delay, than came back to pitch through the seventh -- two innings longer than expected.

Those extra innings made it easier for Leyland to sit Porcello after six effective innings Saturday and conserve his pitches.

"We worked our tails off to get our bullpen back intact," Leyland said. "And when I say we worked our tails off, guys like Verlander and Jackson saved our tails. It's as simple as it is."

The Tigers figured Verlander could. They couldn't be sure about Jackson. Now they're doing it back-to-back, two front-line starting pitchers in their mid-20s.

"His success, when you talk about that, everybody kind of builds off one another," Dombrowski said of Jackson. "I think that happens a lot at the big league level."

Even if Jackson doesn't dominate like this for the whole season, his innings will have a huge impact. Leyland promised Dombrowski when they discussed breaking camp with Porcello that he would take care of the organization's prized young arm. Jackson is helping him keep that promise.

Of course, he's also helping the Tigers win.

"If he continues to pitch this way all year long, he'll be one of the better guys in the league," Dombrowski said of Jackson. "But we still have a long haul."

Jason Beck is a reporter for MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.

lol you beat me to it, Gogetem! Saw this too....Edwin is beyond a bargain...he's a steal!

Whoo Ed!