While he held batters to a .187 batting average in 2006, he was even tougher with runners in scoring position (.176), and two outs and runners in scoring position (.143). Zumaya remained in the bullpen for the 2006 playoffs. However, Zumaya was sidelined for the 2006 American League Championship Series by a sore wrist, which Tigers general manager Dave Dombrowski disclosed in a December 2006 radio interview was due to Zumaya playing the PlayStation 2 video game "Guitar Hero". This was acknowledged by the game's developers with a message on the credits of the Xbox 360 version of "Guitar Hero II": "No pitchers were harmed in the making of this game. Except for one. Joel Zumaya. He had it coming." In a 2016 interview with the Detroit News, however, Zumaya said the Guitar Hero story was just a cover, and not true. While refusing to disclose the actual source of the injury, and calling the Guitar Hero story his "final answer," he also admitted that it was "some bogus stuff."