Timmermann was signed by the Tigers and made his professional debut in 1960 at the age of 20. He would then bounce around the minor leagues for nearly a decade, working as both a starter and reliever, until finally making his big league debut with Detroit on June 18, 1969. He logged 1 1/3 scoreless innings in his debut to kick off the strong season out of the bullpen in his rookie year.
After pitching a 2.70 ERA in 46 2/3 innings out of the bullpen, Timmermann made his first career MLB start in Detroit’s penultimate game of the season. He managed a complete game surrendering three runs to the Orioles, but came away with the win after striking out the future Hall of Famer. Frank Robinson and teammate Bow Powell as they completed brilliant campaigns that saw them both finish in the top 3 of the AL MVP voting that year.
Even after his impressive finish to the 1969 season, Timmermann was not immediately able to break into the Tigers rotation. He spent most of the 1970 and 1971 seasons in the bullpen, pitching to roughly average results over 169 1/3 innings, though he did manage 31 saves along the way. In 1970, he set the team record for appearances by a pitcher with 61 and was named Tiger of the Year by Detroit’s chapter of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America.
It was in 1972 when Timmermann finally got the chance to start regularly in the premier league. In his age 32 season, Timmermann started 25 of his 34 games that year and pitched quite well with a 2.89 ERA in 149 2/3 innings of work. It was a solid enough performance, but not enough to see the right-hander in the rotation again for the 1973 season. The Tigers moved him back into the bullpen, although Timmermann’s chance to start would later come at the expense of his roster spot in Detroit. On June 15, almost four years after his big league debut, Timmermann was traded to Cleveland in exchange for a future All-Star debut. Ede Boer.
The move to an eventual 90-loss club in Cleveland gave Timmermann a chance to start, but he didn’t fare well with the change of scenery. The right-hander pitched a 4.96 ERA in 33 games for the franchise during the 1973 and ’74 seasons. The final game of his Major League career came on April 26, 1974, when he pitched 3 1/3 scoreless innings of relief and was credited with a victory over an Angels lineup that happened to include Robinson. Timmermann pitched at the Triple-A level for the Toledo Mud Hens and Oklahoma City 89ers to end his season before calling it a career after the 1974 season.
Overall, Timmermann posted a 3.78 ERA in 548 innings of work at the big league level over six MLB seasons. He posted an even record of 35-35 with 35 saves in that time, and struck out 315 batters during his big league career. Although it was only long after his big league career ended that it became known that Timmermann was also the biological father of former big leaguer Phil Linkswich. Born almost a month before Timmermann’s MLB debut, Leftwich was put up for adoption as an infant, and the connection between the two wasn’t discovered until Leftwich (who pitched for the Angels in parts of three seasons from 1993 to 1996) was on the eve of his own big league debut.
MLB Trade Rumors joins the rest of the baseball world in extending our condolences to Timmermann’s family, friends and loved ones.
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