July 7, 2020 9:39 AM : Tigers pitching coach Rick Anderson said he expects Boyd and the other four member of the Detroit rotation to be stretched out to 75-to-80 pitches by Opening Day, Chris McCosky of The Detroit News reports.
Analysis: That sort of pitch count would put Boyd in line for roughly five innings in his first start, keeping him on track to handle close to a normal workload in his subsequent turns thereafter. Boyd will continue to use summer camp to build up his pitch count, though he had already kept his arm conditioned during MLB's hiatus by tossing about one simulated game per week. Before the league-wide shutdown in spring training, Boyd had been working to make more use of his changeup and curveball as part of a four-pitch mix this season after leaning on the offerings only 6.1 and four percent of the time, respectively, in 2019 (per FanGraphs).