David Purcey played his latest games in the majors with the
Tigers. He was drafted out of high
school but chose to go to school at my freshman year college, the University of
Oklahoma. The lefty finally signed with
the Toronto Blue Jays in 2004. After a
few years in the minors he made his major league debut in April of 2008, four
days before his birthday, against none other than the Tigers. He got the start in a game against Kenny
Rogers. He went 4.1 innings and allowed
only 2 hits, a double to Pudge Rodriguez who would eventually score, and
another double to Miguel Cabrera. The
Pudge run would be the only run he gave up.
But the Tiges scored three after he was pulled and David got a “no decision”. David spent his first two years in the
majors a spot starter before moving to the bull pen in 2010. He was 4-9 as a Jays starter but with an ERA
above 5.50. After his move to the bull
pen he dropped his ERA to 3.71 in 33 games in 2010. But in 2011 he posted an 11.57 ERA in five
games and the Jays felt he was expendable.
On the third aniversay of his major league debut the Jays traded him to
the Oakland Athletics. He lasted about a
month and a half with the Athletics in 2011 with a much improved 2.13 ERA when
Oakland traded him to the Tiges for Scott Sizemore. David
was used out of the bull pen for the Tiges and on June 13th he came
in to pitch the 10th of a 1-1 game against the Tampa Bay Rays. He gave up a single and an walk but no
runs. The Tiges came to bat and Ramon
Santiago hit a triple off of former Tiger Kyle Farnsworth to make the score 2-1
and give David the win. It would be his
only win as a Tiger. In the rest of 2011
he would lose 2 games and his final record as a Tiger was 1-2 with a 7.23 ERA
in 19 games. After the season the
Tigers released him. He went to the
Phillies and spent his last time in the majors in 2013 with the White Sox in the
bullpen. He was 1-1 with a 2.13
ERA. He was back in the minors in 2014
and was out of baseball for 2015.
Terry Francona was the son of a Tiger. His father was Tito Francona who played for
the Tigers in 1958. Terry was the Tigers
third base coach in 1996 under Buddy Bell.
I remember him being a very cautious coach at third. He left Detroit and went to Philadelphia to
be their manager. He was there for four
seasons and was a losing manager every year.
He went back to coaching for the Texas Rangers and Oakland Athletics
before he became the Red Sox manager who broke the curse of the Bambino. He led the Sox to their first World Series
Championship since 1918 as a first year manager for the Sox in 2004. He is the son of Tito Francona who spent 1 of
his 15 years in the majors with the Tigers in 1958. After a stellar career at the University of
Arizona, the son, Terry started in the majors in 1981 with Montreal as a back
up outfielder and first baseman. He was
in Montreal for 5 years before heading to the White Sox. He also played for Cincinnati, Cleveland and
Milwaukee before his playing days ended in 1990. After that he went into coaching and made it
to the Tigers in 1996, his debut as a major league coach. This year he is in his third year as manager
for the Cleveland Indians. He has been a
winning manager since leaving the Phillies.
No comments:
Post a Comment