Rotation problems

Tigers rotation problems have manifested themselves with a vengeance. Tigers have only five pitchers judged ready to start. Uezono is not considered ready yet and Fossum struggled with velocity making a ni-gun start inevitable. Iwata and Futagami are't fit either and so Tigers rotation will be Andoh, Nohmi, Shimoyanagi (who is fading), Kubo and Kojima. Maybe time to think about bringing Ishikawa back into the rotation. A big question mark remains on how long Shimoyanagi can continue and whether he can pitch well enough for long enough for Tigers to get other starters in place. NPB tracker includes a list of foreigners that Tigers are considering to bolster the rotation (Stults, Reyes, McClung and Taschner). Desperate times also could mean the return of Fukuhara or Sugiyama and that would be something we definitely would want to avoid.

More on Iwata - he's had surgery to repair the damaged ligaments in his left arm and will definitely miss the start of the season. In fact he will be out for the whole of April and there is a possibility that he will miss the entire season.

why would you continue to throw Iwata when he had arm problems? It was not arthritis then? that is called tommy john surgery?