In the Tigers expanding quest to find a left handed relief pitcher to replace Jamie Walker, the Tigers signed lefty Joey Eischen to a minor league deal.  Eischen was having a pretty rough season on the face of things before it got completely derailed because of shoulder surgery.  The reason that I say “on the face of things” is because he was completely awesome in an incredibly small sample size against left handed batters.  Lefties were just two for twenty three against Eichen in 2006.  Of course righties hit .421 against him. 

2005 might be a better gauge.  He was mediocre against both righties (.254) and lefties (.250).  He does have 244 career strikeouts in 296 1/3 innings though and that ability to strike someone out can be pretty valuable.  He also keeps the ball down and doesn’t give up a ton of homeruns (25 in those 296 1/3 innings).

Assuming he’s ready from his shoulder surgery, I think Eischen is worth a look as opposed to Jose Mesa, who I have little confidence in.

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