Lakeland, Fla. – Two left-handed pitchers at two very different career stages, essentially fighting for one spot in the Detroit Tigers’ rotation. Or so we thought.
That was the situation Sunday as both Francisco Liriano (34, 323 big-league games in 12 seasons) and Daniel Norris (24, 54 big-league games in four seasons) combined to pitch five scoreless innings in the Tigers’ 6-3 spring win over the Atlanta Braves.
The presumption was that Michael Fulmer, Jordan Zimmermann, Matthew Boyd and Mike Fiers had strong holds on the first four spots in the rotation, while Liriano and Norris were competing for the fifth spot.