Ruffin brings arm, 'goofy' personality to bullpenBy Jason Beck / MLB.com | 07/25/11 9:30 PM ET
CHICAGO -- Just over a year after the Tigers drafted him, Chance Ruffin arrived in the visitors clubhouse at U.S. Cellular Field on Monday afternoon to find the infamous pink backpack for the newest Tigers reliever waiting at his locker.
He also arrived with icebreaking jokes.
"Pretty much a joke for any occasion, one-liners," Ruffin said.
Then he tested out his material.
"What do you call a flying monkey? A hot-air baboon," Ruffin said. "Jokes like that."
He calls his personality "goofy," which makes sense since he has been a closer ever since his last year at the University of Texas, before the Tigers drafted him with their second selection in the sandwich round of the 2010 First-Year Player Draft. He's also the son of former Phillies and Rockies reliever Bruce Ruffin, who turned a good left arm into a 12-year Major League career, and might well have passed down a little bullpen mentality.
Ruffin certainly got the sense of competitiveness. When the Phillies and Rockies would have a family day at the park and a softball game, the younger Ruffin would always be a part of it.
"Yeah, I was," he said. "And I was always the most competitive one out there. It's a game for everybody to have fun out there, but I was out there to win."
Ruffin has fun in baseball these days, mainly through his gags and his jokes. By the time he gets through his first Major League game on Monday night, he figured, "I'll probably run through about 60 different jokes in the bullpen."
If he can go through the White Sox lineup in the later innings, that would make him a lot more entertaining for the Tigers coaching staff and front office.
After opening the year at Double-A Erie, Ruffin made just eight appearances at Triple-A Toledo before getting the call. But if the Tigers see Ruffin as a potential piece for them down the stretch, possibly as another seventh-inning right-hander, then it behooves them to get an idea what they have in him before the July 31 Trade Deadline, so they can figure out if they need more help.
Truth be told, the Tigers saw Ruffin with the potential for a fast track to the big leagues when they drafted him. His performance with the SeaWolves and Mud Hens did little to change that.
"I think this boils down to one simple thing: It appears to me that our people in the organization felt that he was better for us at this point than [Lester] Oliveros was. Period," manager Jim Leyland said. "That's what it sounds like to me."
Ruffin, not surprisingly, will take that. He became the third member of the 2010 Draft class to make it to the big leagues, joining White Sox left-hander Chris Sale and San Diego's Josh Spence.
"I hoped that one of the things that I brought to the table would be the ability to move through an organization if I pitched well enough," he said. "So that was always my goal going in."
Jason Beck is a reporter for MLB.com. Read Beck's Blog and follow him on Twitter @beckjason. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.