Wow, what a day to be away from the news. There has been a number of large news items that hit the streets today some great to hear others pretty bad, all rather unexpected. The Detroit Tiger blogosphere has been extremely busy today covering all happenings so I’ve tied together thoughts from around Detroit below:

Kenny Rogers has surgery for a blood clot; out for three months

This is obviously horrible news that broke earlier today. Any surgery is pretty scary, at least to me, and the Free Press did a good job of finding out what exactly this meant by talking to a doctor at the Detroit Medical Center.

So this basically means that Kenny Rogers is out for quite some time and Chad Durbin’s shot at the rotation gets expanded quite a bit. The Tigers have numerous options beyond Durbin though, including lefty Andrew Miller. Dave Dombrowski doesn’t seem to be panicking yet:

Dombrowski said that Chad Durbin will be “our fifth starter in the short term and we’ll see how he does. Plus we have some young guys in our system that we like.”

Other related links, for your convienience:

• Detroit News - Has reaction from some of the team.
• Free Press
• MLB.com (Jason Beck)
• Kurt @ Mack Avenue Tigers
• Bilfer @ The Detroit Tigers Weblog
• Talking Tigers - Good writeup on numerous options available in the minors.
• Lee @ Tiger Tales thinks we’re likely to see Miller if Durbin falters.
• Bless You Boys
• The Daily Fungo

Beyond Durbin’s ability to sit-in for Rogers, or anyone’s ability for that matter, one has to wonder if the affect will be larger than the replacement. Last year many players touted Kenny’s leadership on the team and experience he brought to the mostly young pitching staff.

“Nate feeds off of him,” said catcher Vance Wilson, who will also be on the disabled list to start the season. “Bonderman feeds off of him. Verlander feeds off of him. Everyone feeds off of him. They’re going to have to pick up the slack, obviously.”

If true, They’ll need to grow on up in a hurry. It’s a shame that last week we were discussing whether Kenny should have gotten the nod for Opening Day and now he’ll be out for the first half. Shows the importance of deep pitching and luckily thats one of Detroit’s strengths.