Detroit Tigers left fielder Justin Upton tested his right wrist in the batting cage before the game but apparently didn't feel well enough to play Thursday afternoon.

Andrew Romine will get his second consecutive start in left after entering as a defensive replacement when Upton suffered a contusion on his right forearm during a slide into second base on Tuesday.

Shortstop Jose Iglesias, who was banged up on a bizarre play to end Wednesday's game, is also out of the game. Dixon Machado will start in his place.

The Tigers will decide by the end of the day whether to place Iglesias on the disabled list, manager Brad Ausmus said.
http://www.freep.com/story/sports/mlb/tigers/2017/04/20/jose-iglesias-detroit-tigers/100695096/
Detroit Tigers' Jose Iglesias could be placed on 7-day concussion DL.
Mlive

Victor Martinez, still searching for his first extra-base hit of the season – the longest drought of his career to open a season, was given a day off.
Miguel Cabrera, previously thought to be in line for his first off-day of the season, will start at designated hitter.

Because of the shake-up, Ausmus penned Nick Castellanos into the cleanup spot. It’s the first time this season Castellanos has not hit second. Tyler Collins will start in rightfield and hit second against righty Erasmo Ramirez.

http://m.tigers.mlb.com/news/articl...-to-avoid-pen-sweep-vs-rays/?topicId=26688836
Tigers hope Norris will help to avoid 'pen.
Tigers official site

http://detroit.cbslocal.com/2017/04/20/ausmus-scuffling-v-mart-needs-more-time-video/
Ausmus: Scuffling V-Mart Needs More Time.
CBSDetroit

http://www.blessyouboys.com/2017/4/...inez-slump-detroit-tigers-batting-order-whiff
Victor Martinez has been the Tigers’ worst hitter so far this season.
The Tigers may need to look at other options for the cleanup spot if things don’t turn around soon.
BYBTB

Through 14 games, the 38-year-old Martinez is hitting .204 with a .490 OPS. He doesn’t have a single extra-base hit.
Among the 131 players with at least 55 plate appearances this season, V-Mart ranks 124th in OPS.
It bears mention that he’s not the only notable name at the bottom of this chart. Chicago’s Jose Abreu ranks 122nd (.496), New York’s Curtis Granderson ranks 127th (.450) and Toronto’s Jose Bautista ranks 129th (.415).

Martinez also has some interesting company in extra-base hit purgatory. Among the 172 players with at least 50 plate appearances, only he and Joe Mauer have yet to break through.

In Martinez’ last eight games he’s 6-for-30, with two runs batted in, a walk, seven strikeouts, and sixteen men left on base. He also has just one multi-hit game and no extra base hits all season, but has three multi-strikeout games out of the twelve games he’s played. His batting average is currently .195 on the season.
Not only is he not hitting, he’s not allowing himself to see the number of pitches per plate appearance he used to. The long at-bats and tough pitches fouled off haven’t been at all in evidence so far. His 2016 strikeout rate of 14.8, which was by far the highest of his career, already felt like a harbinger of doom. So far, he’s at 19.6 this year.

Tigers take the early lead with Kinsler's leadoff homerun.

If they had hit a home run in last nights 'twilight zone' game they would have tied the indians for most games with a home run to start the season and now with Kinsler's bomb set the record.

We're still in first place at 8-6 lol. Everybody else in the division is 7-7. Pretty weird.

And Collins screws up in RF again....terrible

Collins whifs again in the outfield good lord tigers have so many holes

They gave Souza a hit for that r u you kidding me

I mean if you can't make routine plays you're in trouble. That's 2 in the first inning. After what happened last night this is just getting out of hand.

Tigers Defense is just gawd awful folks

Those pitches aren't f'n strikes ump!

Machado eatin alive on that one, I've seen enough for the day, this tigers team isn't good

Part of what we are seeing happen in the field is from playing baseball in the most Fuckdiculous ball park ever built,
the other part is some of the players suck ass, and fuck another ball fucked up by Machado, we have the wrong Machado.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C9bCi6rUMAACCdu.jpg

Fuck you home plate ump Marquez, squeezing the strike zone on Norris.

Lets see how many runs Collins can personally be responsible for in one game. Is that all 3 so far?

Get that f'n clown shoes Collins out of right field,
Shades of Shine box Ryan Raburn.

Really feel bad for Norris. I get that the ballpark sucks, but this is one of the worst defensive displays I can remember. There's been at least 3 or 4 outs we've screwed up.

UMRules06 said:

Really feel bad for Norris. I get that the ballpark sucks, but this is one of the worst defensive displays I can remember. There's been at least 3 or 4 outs we've screwed up.

Click to expand...

46 pitches for Norris, he had to throw an extra innings worth there with the fuckups, but he also was getting hit on with the rays pitchers sitting on his FB fr a couple of those singles, craptastic game so far.

I'm going to have a cigar now, I don't think there will be a Tigers Victory cigar after 9 full innings.

Can't even begin to count how many times lead off home runs end up being all she wrote, just like when I play club keno and hit the first number then don't get shit get after that..it's very annoying

What a pathetic bottom 4 of the lineup offensively