Detroit makes their first trade before the trade deadline....

Working to shore up their holes Detroit made their first move, which is not a great surprise. In my mind it wasn't a question of IF this trade would get made, but who they'd acquire.

Detroit traded two minor leaguers to Kansas City for veteran third baseman Wilson Bitemit. Bitemit hit .281 with 3 homers and 27 RBIs for the Royals in 58 games before losing his starting spot when Kansas City called up a rookie prospect.

Bitemit is also a switch hitter, adding more flexibility to the lineup. Once a bit lacking in left handed hitting, Detroit now has switch hitting Alex Avila, left handed batting Brennan Boesch, who's hitting well enough to be a regular in the lineup, Victor Martinez, switch hitter Carlos Guillen, and switch hitter Wilson Bitemit. They could have a 5 left handed hitter lineup, and even add in Don Kelly for a 6th if they want. Pretty good for a team which had questions about enough left handed hitting productivity coming into the season.

General Manager Dave Dombrowski said that Bitemit will immediately become the starting third basemen. Not a surprise considering Brandon Inge is now hitting .177 with 1 homer run and 15 RBIs in 70 games. Maybe in a slightly bigger surprise, Dombroski said that Don Kelly will be his primary backup. That would seem to indicate that Detroit plans to entirely cut ties with Brandon Inge. I didn't figure that would happen during the season, since Inge's trade value with his woeful offense and declining defensive range is questionable. He's still a great defensive third baseman if he can get to the ball, but his bad knees have sapped his once great range.

It would seem that Detroit is either going to release or trade Inge though. Inge is a 10/5 guy so he has the right to refuse a trade. If it's clear that Detroit has no further plans for him though he may accept a trade.

If this is indeed the end of the Tiger road for Brandon Inge, he was a career .234 hitter in 1367 games. He hit 137 home runs and drove in 581. He had 1066 hits in a Tiger uniform and was a 2009 American League All-Star. It was a knee injury in the first few games after that All-Star break that he never seemed to recover from in the 2 full seasons since.

Inge was the last remaining player from the 2003 team that lost an AL record 119 games. I'm glad he was around to see some better days at least.

Dombrowski also said that Detroit is looking at adding another starting pitcher or maybe even two. Rumors link them to talks with the Braves for Derek Lowe and with the Rockies for Ubaldo Jiminez. I'd have to think with Jiminez developing into one of the National League's best pitchers and still not even being quite at his prime the cost would be alot higher than it would be to get Lowe. It would be nice, but probably not realistic.