The Detroit Tigers could use a spark for the second half of the season. They may just get one from within the organization.

Relief pitcher Al Alburquerque, according to Mlive.com, could possibly return sometime soon for the Tigers.

“Al Alburquerque is moving forward in a throwing program while rehabilitating from offseason elbow surgery and could start pitching in games sometime in the near future.”

Furthermore, here is what head athletic trainer Kevin Rand had to say in the same story.

“He’s making good progress,” Rand said. “A couple sessions of that and we’ll reevaluate whether we think he’s ready to begin a rehab assignment.”

“He’s been in a mound progression program,” Rand said. “He was scheduled to throw a batting practice — what we call pitcher’s BP — but due to the weather down here wasn’t able to. We had to run a simulated BP (session) inside instead.”

Well in my opinion, I believe that if the Tigers can get Alburquerque sometime soon, it would be a great boost for them. That is if he can pitch as well as he did in 2011. Here are his stats from 2011.

“6-1 with a 1.87 ERA in 41 appearances. He struck out 67 in 43 1/3 innings pitched and had a WHIP of 1.154.”

If he can come back and pitch effectively, I believe it is what the Tigers need to put them over the hump. The hitting will come around at some point soon and if they can get Alburquerque to be the 7th inning guy, things well come together in the back of the program.

Although this move would not make many headlines nationally, this could be one of the biggest additions the Tigers can make before the trading deadline and would save them from making a trade that may not work.