Detroit Tigers' flame-throwing reliever Joel Zumaya left last night's game against the Minnesota Twins with what appeared to be a serious right elbow injury.

Zumaya collapsed to the ground after delivering an eight-inning pitch and was in obvious pain as the training staff attended to him.

Tigers manager Jim Leyland said that his pitcher will have an MRI on the elbow this morning. Catcher Gerald Laird said he heard "just like a little pop" before Zumaya crumpled.

When NBA teams spoke to Cincinnati coach Mick Cronin about Lance Stephenson, he filled them in on the Brooklyn native. The gist? In the 2011 draft, he'd be snapped up in the lottery.

"I'll tell you what I told all the teams that I talked to -- that if he had come back to school he'd be a top 10 pick next year," Cronin told The Post hours before last night's NBA Draft.

"So my message is you might get a guy [with pick] 20 on down that would have been a lottery pick next year. So you've got to take him a year early and develop him."

The 19-year-old Stephenson, a 6-foot-5 freshman guard at Cincinnati and a Lincoln HS alum, went to the Pacers with the 10th pick of the second round, 40th overall.

Actually, Larry Bird, the Pacers' president of basketball operations, thought Stephenson would have gone in the first round.

"Lance is young and has some growing to do, but he's very talented," Bird said. "I'm surprised he made it through the first round."