Tigers P Zumaya back with his overpowering stuff after 2 operations and questions about career

Tigers P Zumaya back, with overpowering fastball

LAKELAND, Fla. — Joe Zumaya and his exceptional fastball are back for the Detroit Tigers.

Zumaya’s overpowering pitching sessions have attracted a lot of attention in the early days of spring training. Just six months ago, as he was preparing for a second major operation in less than two years on his aching right shoulder, he wondered whether his career might be over at the age of 24.

“I’ve asked myself plenty of times: When does this stop? It’s come down plenty of times to: That’s enough, my arm is shot,” Zumaya said Wednesday. “I’ve had so many surgeries already. I’ve seen plenty of guys’ careers end. They’re done; they just make the decision t go home. I know I have some left. I have a lot left.”

He has so much left that Tiger manager Jim Leyland sometimes shakes his head in disbelief.

“I watched him throwing the other day and I remarked to one of the coaches: ‘How does a human being hit that?’” Leyland said. “That blows my mind . . . the ball is exploding up there, and it’s impressive enough that he can throw it that way; it’s more impressive that somebody can hit it.”

The Tigers would like Zumaya to take back the eighth-inning role he had in his rookie season of 2006, when he struck out 97 in 83 1/3 innings and they won the pennant.

His problems started the following spring with a finger injury that resulted in the first of two operations that year. The second was on his shoulder, which was never right until another surgery last August.

“It bothered me all last year,” Zumaya said. “I kept my mouth shut, but it hurt all year. I tried to do as much as I could to help this team, and it’s probably my fault that I did it but I’m a competitor. I don’t want to sit on the bench and watch my teammates go out there and battle it off, and then the seventh and eighth inning come along and the game goes the other way.”

Zumaya said the injury consisted of both a fracture and a detached tendon.

“I got three cortisone shots last year, so that has to tell you it was bothering me,” he said. “I went home and I did what I had to do; I made the decision and now it’s paying off.”

Leyland said Zumaya’s latest surgery is unique for a pitcher.

“I don’t know how it’s going to hold up,” the manager said. “I’m holding my breath because that stuff is just nasty. He threw some good breaking balls, too.”

By the end of March, the Tigers would like to test the shoulder on two straight pitching days. For now, the fact that he can throw without pain is enough.

“I’m only 25 and I still have a lot of gas in me,” Zumaya said. “This year is one of the years I’m going to have to show that I haven’t run out.”

NOTES: Plans to bring former Gold Glove first baseman Andres Galaragga to camp to tutor Miguel Cabrera have not materialized, but the Tigers are still open to the idea . . . Left-handed pitcher Bobby Seay has been idled for a few days as a precaution.