De Blok returns to WhiteCaps in pitching duel

• The Detroit Tigers have been moving around Dutch pitcher Tom de Blok lately. The Tigers want to convert the closer/ reliever into a starter and that’s why the 21-year old was sent down to A Short Season recently.

But last night, after a solid outing of three innings with the Connecticut Tigers of the New York – Penn League (A Short Season), Tom returned to the West Michigan WhiteCaps, where his adventure in minor league baseball began a few months ago.

What an outing it was. In five innings, Tom flat out dominated the Dayton Dragons as he gave up just three hits and fanned six. Normally an outing like this would have been enough for a win, but Tom’s opponent, Tony Santillan, threw six shutout innings in which he allowed two hits, walked three and struck out five.

Tom started the game with a scare as the opening batter teed off with a triple to left field. But Tom recovered nicely as he retired the next three batters with two strikeouts and a groundout. Tom wasn’t quite helped by his defense as they committed two errors. Nevertheless, he managed to pitch five shutout innings in which he faced twenty batters. Besides being a pitching duel, the game was a festival of errors. The West Michigan WhiteCaps committed three errors as the Dayton Dragons committed five.

To emphasize Tom’s solid outing, he threw 58 pitches of which 44 were called for strikes.With this outing, Tom lowered his ERA in the Midwest League (A Full Season) to 1.25 and his WHIP to 0.83.