Leyland Gets Defensive

The Detroit Tigers had their 12 game winning streak snapped last night against the Oakland A's. It wa the Tigers' best stretch since 1934. They have simply ran away from the American League Central. despite what the Tigers have accomplished, well they still have to clinch the division, there are some non believers out there that believe their current hot streak is a byproduct of being in a bad division and playing against lesser competition recently.

Manager Jim Leyland doesn't want to hear any of it. Leyland was asked about the quality of the division and exploded.

"Let me remind you of something," Leyland said. "It was three months ago, two months ago, that the Cleveland Indians were the talk of baseball. Everybody was saying they were pretty good.



"Now all of a sudden, because we beat them, they're bad? That's not fair. I'm not falling for that.


"The Central is the division we play in. Nobody is going to take anything away from my team. When they had to step it up, they stepped it up.


"Nobody can take that away from us. I'm not going to let anybody put a damper on what those guys have done.


"We have a pitcher out there with 23 wins. We have a guy with 40-some saves. We have three or four guys hitting .300. We have an All-Star catcher and other All-Stars. We're OK."

"I can't help what happened with the White Sox and Cleveland. But I'm not going to get sucked into the division being bad so that when you play other divisions, you're going to have trouble.



"We might. We might not. But I guarantee you one thing, and this you can print. It's not like everyone is lining up to play the Tigers. We're pretty good, too.


"I'm not going to let anybody take away from what this team has done up to this point — and we really haven't done enough yet. I'm not counting my chickens.


"But don't give me that bull about the Central. I'm not going to answer silly questions and to me, that's a silly question.


"The Central is what it is. That's the division we play in. Right now, we have the best record in the Central and we've earned where we're at. That's the way I look at it."

Leyland is correct. You only play who they put in front of you. They can't help it if Cleveland and Minnesota ran into some bad luck with injuries. It's not their fault that the moves the White Sox made didn't pan out. On paper Chicago was supposed to win the division and was a fring World Series contender. The Twins are always held in high regard and the Indians are ahead of schedule.

Instead of saying how bad the AL Central is, the Tigers should be applauded for taking it up a notch when they had to, considering their recent run of late season fades.

Leyland Better Get Used To The Cabrera Questions

Detroit Tigers manager Jim Leyland says he's tired of all the questions about slugger Miguel Cabrera. Earth to Leyland: Get used to it. The questions aren't going away anytime soon. At least right now anyway. That's what happens when your best player acts like a buffoon while drinking himself into oblivion. What in the world made him go into a restaurant threatning to shoot and kill people. I never mad those threats on my wors drinking night. Usually you try to make it somewhere to pass out.

Team president and general manager Dave Dombrowski is hitching his and Leyland's immediate future to Cabrera. And how does Cabrera repay them? By going out and behaving like some college frat boy. Right now they look like enablers which isn't a good thing. Which means that reporters and writers will be asking questions about him as long as the Tigers haven't hardlined Cabrera, and that day ain't coming anytime soon.

It'll be hard for the general public to move past Cabrera follies, if you want to label it as such, as long as the organizational powers enable him to act in an irresponsible manner. The Tigers hired Raul Gonzalez to babysit Cabrera for this season. Whether this works or not I don't know. I call it more of a smoke screen. Cabrera can still go out and get blasted, and have Raul drive him home and help him to his couch and make sure he gets to the ballpark on time the next day. I think it's more of an enabling process than trying to help the guy. And yes he does need help.

There will be more questions coming and no matter how pissed you get Jimmy they're gonna keep coming. The vague answers aren't good enough. The reporters don't want to hear about what shape he's in or how he's gonna have his best season ever. What they want to know is whether you guys are going to give him some legitimate help off the field. What they want to know is if he's a functioning alcoholic, if he does this all the time or are his previous incidents just a blip. I'm betting that it's more of a problem than Leyland or Dombrowski are letting us know.

As a Tigers fan I won't be hypocritical, because I know I'll be rooting for the guy on the field. I don't expect anyone to agree with me. But he really needs to get it together off the field and they need to get him some real help and not a babysitter. By doing that all they're doing is enabling his activity and saying he doesn't have a problem, which is what Cabrera's probably saying to the Tigers.   

Leyland's Son Gets A Spring Invite

In a neverending quest to find a catcher for the future the Detroit Tigers have given Jim Leyland's son Patrick a spring training invite. Of course this doesn't guarantee he'll make the team. It's pretty much just to get him a taste of the majors. Unlike some sons of players and coaches, Patrick is no slouch on the diamond. He was rated the number one player in Pittsburgh, the state's (Pennsylvania) fourth best prospect, and rated no.164 nationally. Leyland was selected in the eighth round of the MLB amateur draft last year.