As division lead narrows, Detroit ready for challenge
sportsillustrated.cnn.com
All year we've been waiting for the Tigers to trip. From the day they seized control at the top of the American League Central and held baseball's best record (29-14 on May 21), we've been watching and waiting.
It's not personal. It's not as if anyone this side of the South Side of Chicago, or maybe the greater metropolitan Minneapolis area, really roots against the Tigers.
It's just that ... well, they're the Tigers. They haven't been very good in the past few years in case you hadn't noticed.
Now we're in the final six weeks or so of this different kind of Tigers' season, during which they still boast baseball's best record at 78-41, and the whispers of a possible dive are everywhere. The Tigers have seen a healthy 10-game lead trimmed to a more modest 6 ½ in just a little more than a week. The World Series champion White Sox are nipping at their cleats -- snarling, some might say. The resurgent Twins aren't far behind. Many are talking about Detroit's tired young arms and the inevitable slump to come.
General manager Dave Dombrowski, the man who built this team, will hear none of that.
"I don't think our guys will back down at all," Dombrowski said from Boston on Tuesday. "I don't think it will be a pressure situation where it just gets to them. We did rise to the occasion a couple of times. I think they'll be fine."
As much as some may predict the worst for the Tigers, there are still plenty of reasons to believe. Though they've slipped up at times in big series -- in late May and early June, for example, the Tigers went 3-7 in consecutive series against the Yankees, Red Sox and White Sox -- more recently they've shown some outright toughness. They won four straight series against the White Sox, A's, Indians and Twins in late July.
And, after they finished last weekend on a season-worst five-game losing streak -- man, did that bring out the doomsayers -- the Tigers rebounded with two impressive wins against the Red Sox in Boston.
This is a really good team. They have powerful, healthy young pitchers (Justin Verlander, Jeremy Bonderman and Joel Zumaya), proven veterans (catcher Ivan Rodriguez, infielder Carlos Guillen, DH Dmitri Young, lefty starter Kenny Rogers, closer Todd Jones) and the top-ranked pitching staff (a 3.68 ERA) in the league. And a manager, Jim Leyland, who has seen it all.
"We know we're not going to be in the position where we all the sudden go in the tank," Dombrowski said. "[But] it's been a long time since we've won. You can understand why people will think that way, especially if they haven't seen us play."
In fact, all this late-season heat from the White Sox -- Chicago has the second-best record in the game, tied with the Mets -- might be just the kind of kick-in-the-sliding-pants the Tigers could use. Last year, remember, the surprising White Sox pushed their way to a 15-game lead in the Central, only to see that lead chopped to 1 ½ games on Sept. 22. With five games to play, including three on the final weekend against the hard-charging Indians, the '05 Sox led the division by just two games.
The Sox didn't collapse. Instead, they won the final five games, swept their first-round series with Boston and lost only one game the rest of the way, going 11-1 in the postseason and winning their first World Series since 1917.
Many White Sox players said the pressure during the final weeks of the regular season hardened them for the postseason.
"The test is on, and that's good, because I think if you're successful, it makes you better," Leyland told reporters during the team's recent losing streak. "We'll find out, but I have confidence in this team."
The Tigers would have to completely fold over the final weeks of the season to miss out on the postseason altogether. They can go 15-28 the rest of the way -- that's equivalent to about a 105-loss season -- and still win 93 games, which probably will be good enough for a wild-card berth.
Right now, the Tigers are winning at a .655 clip, which translates to about a 106-win season. That'd be the best season in baseball since the Mariners won 116 games in 2001.
But finishing strong and putting up 100 wins doesn't mean anything when it comes to success in the postseason. In the 11 years of the wild-card era there have been 17 teams that have won 100 or more games. Only five of them made it to the World Series (the 1995 Indians, 1998 Yankees, 1999 Braves, 2003 Yankees and 2004 Cardinals) and only one -- the '98 Yanks -- won it.
What's important for the Tigers is not clinching early or putting up 100-plus wins. It's also finding a way to beat the White Sox down the stretch (the Tigers have won only 3 of 12 against the Sox this season, with seven games remaining), resting their young starters (no Detroit starter has had to go on short rest all year), getting healthy (second baseman Placido Polanco separated his shoulder in Tuesday's win over Boston and may be out for the year, while pitcher Mike Maroth is on rehab assignment in the minors) and readying themselves for October.
If they can do that -- if the Tigers can use the heat in these last few weeks of summer to fine-tune an already impressive team -- we might all be waiting for a trip that will never come. |
