Notes from the baseball wilderness, Vol. 77:

Daniel Norris is a mere 24 years old. It is far, far too soon to write him off and anyone who does so should be roundly ignored and ostracized and targeted with all sorts of truly offensive name-calling like “ninny” and “loser” and “silly doo-doo head” and things of that nature. But at some point, the young left-hander needs to take a step forward.

For pitching prospects who fail, it is rarely a failure of stuff. It’s not talent — every big leaguer has talent, yes, even you, Francisco Rodriguez — but rather learning how to use it. Guys who have gone through their entire minor league career tossing 99 MPH past guys get to the Majors and quickly discover that, yes, these hitters can square up a 99 MPH fastball if it doesn’t move enough or is poorly located. The challenge for a gifted young pitcher isn’t their stuff — it’s harnessing it and learning how to consistently get hitters out with it.

That is where Norris is. He made 13 starts last year, struck out over a batter an inning, kept his walks down, and looked like he’d figured something out. On Wednesday night, he made his 15th start of the season. His strikeouts are down, his walks are up, and he’s worse across the board.

Why? Who knows. You can clearly see the talent when he pitches, he’ll go through good stretches, and then you have outings like this one, where every time he got behind in a count, he seemed to resort to a meaty fastball that was hit halfway to Windsor.

Like for the Tigers, the 2017 season looks like it might be a lost cause for Norris. That may actually work out better in the long-term — with no pressure to lift the team out of their current malaise, he can work on learning to pitch at this level and finding the consistency he will need to become the reliable starter he still can be.