CLEVELAND -- The pitches were all close to 100 mph. But one of them went behind the batter. Another hit the umpire. Another went to the backstop and allowed a runner to advance.

Trevor Rosenthal struck out two batters in a scoreless eighth inning in his Detroit Tigers debut Monday night in Cleveland. He was effective, but highly erratic. Exactly as advertised.

The Tigers signed Rosenthal to a minor-league contract two weeks ago and then added him to the active roster on Monday night after he spent a couple weeks in Triple-A Toledo.

“We agreed to give him an opportunity here,” said Tigers manager Ron Gardenhire. “This guy was one of the better closers in the game a few years ago. We’ll see what he’s got.”

It’s been several years and one Tommy John surgery since Rosenthal, still only 29 years old, was one of the game’s elite closers. And even in his best seasons -- 2014 and 2015 with the St. Louis Cardinals -- he could still be wild.

It’s not exactly clear how he fits on a team that is on the way to losing more than 100 games in 2019.

Only 14 days remain until the trade deadline and the idea that Rosenthal could be so incredible in a handful of games as to suddenly make himself marketable as trade bait seems very far-fetched.

The Tigers may be toying with the idea of using Rosenthal as a closer after Shane Greene is traded, as expected, later this month.

But it’s possible the Tigers were just mesmerized by his radar gun during his bullpen session two weeks ago at Comerica Park and decided he couldn’t be any worse than their current options.

“He’s got a very powerful, strong arm and throws about every day,” Gardenhire said. “He’s a big strong guy. We’ll see if he can throw the ball over up here and get back to where he was. We’ll see. I know I saw him in the pen at home and he was throwing the living fire out of the ball.”

Rosenthal said 2019 has been “nothing like I had anticipated.” He was cut loose by the Nationals after putting up ugly numbers in both the majors and minors.

“I’m just trying to get through it and learn from everything that’s happened and hopefully I can use that for future success,” he said. "Right now I’m just trying to keep my head down and keep working and try to get a little bit better every day and I hope it will pay off in the end.

“I’m super excited to have this opportunity. They believed in me, I had a chance to get some work in in Triple-A. Now they think I’m ready to come up here and contribute.”

The Tigers have invested just two weeks and not much money in Rosenthal, so he won’t get much rope if he struggles.

He shouldn’t. The radar gun isn’t reason enough to keep Rosenthal around. The guy who was sent down to the Toledo after Monday’s game, an unknown journeyman named Jose Cisnero, can throw even harder. And he was largely effective in his brief look with the Tigers.

So Rosenthal’s tryout with the Tigers will be short. If it works, maybe the bullpen will get a little boost at a time when it needs some help. If not, someone else will get a shot in a couple weeks.

When will Gardenhire use him?

“We’ll try to find the right situation, but we don’t have too many right ones,” he said.