TIGERS BARELY HANGING ON IN CENTRAL

You'll never believe is, but at around 3 a.m. early yesterday it took a lot of persuading -- and couple bottles of Moosehead Amber to get The Geek to calm down and back off from saying that the Detroit Tigers were heading into their biggest game of the season against the Texas Rangers.

The Tigers ended up getting smoked 11-3 by Texas, but stayed 1½ games ahead of the Minnesota Twins, although the White Sox closed to within three games, thanks in large part to Freddy Garcia flirting with a perfect game.

Observers from afar who have a soft spot for the Tigers -- and who doesn't, what with the team's proud history, its great stars, and Detroit being generally down on its luck -- are finding this painful to watch. Not to play blame-the-media, but now you're getting all sorts of "Greatest Collapse Ever" retrospectives (cough, '87 Blue Jays), and that has to weigh on the minds of players who don't have a lot of experience with playoff races, much less the playoffs (unless you count Pudge Rodriguez playing on all those Texas teams that were sacrificial lambs for the Yankees back in the late '90s.)

Plenty of people predicted the Tigers' pitchers would fade down the stretch, but that actually hasn't happened (although Justin Verlander got knocked around pretty good last night). It's their hitting that's killing them.

Not to pick on one guy, but believe it or not, Hardball Times' Win Shares ratings consistently had Detroit's rookie centre-fielder, Curtis Granderson, ranked in the top five among American League outfielders during the first half of the season. Now he fallen all the way into a tie for 10th (coincidentally with Texas' Gary Matthews Jr., who hit for the cycle against the Tigers last night.)

Anyway, the main reason it's too hasty to write off Detroit is, as noted yesterday, their weak schedule down the stretch. That's what got them into first place, and that's what may end up keeping them there.

Incidentally, if Granderson doesn't win a Gold Glove this season, they ought to stop presenting them. He's ranked as the best defensive outfielder in the AL, but you have to figure that after Torii Hunter and Vernon Wells win Gold Gloves just on reputation, it might be hard for a third centre-fielder to be honoured.

(Full disclosure: Wells and Hunter are ranked as the second- and third-best defensive outfielders in the league; the Jays' Reed Johnson ranks highest among corner outfielders.)

That's all for now. Send your thoughts to neatesager@yahoo.ca.