Virgil Vasquez is going to make his major league debut tomorrow and while he may be on the big league team for all of one day, it’s probably worth taking a look at where this sleeper came from.  Vasquez was drafted by the Tigers in the seventh round of the 2003 draft out of UC Santa Barbara and he made his minor league debut that season with Oneota.  While he was hit hard in eleven starts (6.92 ERA), he carried what he learned there into his first full season with the White Caps in 2004.  He finished the season 14-6 in 27 starts and he had an impressive 120/34 strikeout to walk ratio in 168 1/3 innings.

2005 was a mixed bag.  He pitched pretty well for Lakeland to start the season, but when he was bumped up to Erie, he got knocked around.  The end result was a 2-8 record with a 5.27 ERA in 15 starts at Double A.  Last year though, he threw a lot better in his second stint with the Seawolves.  His walk rate was up but it was still a very respectable 2.59/9 innings but his strikeout rate was also up.

This year, Vasquez got off to a rough start at Toledo and he was hit hard in his first two starts.  Since then, he’s been on fire though and the end result is 50 strikeouts in 40 2/3 innings with only ten walks.  Now we’ll get to see what he can do at the big league level and he has a tough task handling a pretty rough middle of the Twins lineup.

***UPDATE***

I forgot to mention that Virgil Vasquez will not only get the start tomorrow, but it’ll be on the spotlight because the Tigers are on Sunday Night Baseball on ESPN. 

Permalink | Posted in 2007 Tigers