Major League Baseball

Slumping Tigers fading fast in AL Central race

Published Jul. 21, 2010 4:21 a.m. ET

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The Detroit Tigers were great at home and poor on the road before the All-Star game.

Since the break, they've been awful everywhere.

Again.

Detroit lost to the Texas Rangers 8-0 on Tuesday night and took a season-high, seven-game skid into the series finale Wednesday night.

Rain fell during the bottom of the sixth inning in the second game of the set, as the home team was trying to muster up a rally, and many of the 27,576 fans at Comerica Park started to fill the aisles. The storm passed through the Motor City, but the cloud that is hanging over its beloved baseball franchise might linger.

Detroit has a lot of holes in the field, rotation and bullpen - due in part to injuries - and the non-waiver trading deadline at the end of the month is not expected to work miracles.

''When you lose, everything looks bad,'' All-Star Miguel Cabrera said.

Third baseman Brandon Inge was hit by a pitch Monday night, breaking his left hand and putting him out of the lineup for at least a month. Hard-throwing right-hander Joel Zumaya is out for the season because of an elbow injury, turning a solid bullpen into a shaky one.

Manager Jim Leyland, though, refuses to point to those losses for sympathy.

''You don't expect anybody to fell sorry for you,'' he said.

The veteran manager gave reporters a lot of short answers before Tuesday's game, then looked and sounded relatively upbeat afterward despite the seemingly grim outlook for his team.

Leyland lamented the missed chances Detroit had in a 14-inning loss in the series opener to Texas.

''Usually when you miss opportunities like that, it comes back to haunt you,'' he said.

Leyland has learned that the hard way in his five seasons in Detroit's dugout.

Detroit was 30 games above .500 before the All-Star game in his first season, then a losing record after the break led to a second-place finish that was still good enough to put the franchise in the playoffs for the first time since 1987. The Tigers blew past the New York Yankees and the Oakland Athletics for the AL pennant, then botched chances against St. Louis in the 2006 World Series.

The Tigers were 18 games above .500 the next season before the break, then had another losing record afterward and finished second in the division with 88 wins.

Detroit didn't keep its momentum in 2008 - losing 88 times - with a 47-47 mark before the All-Star game and a flopping finish.

The Tigers bounced back last season with a winning record before the All-Star break, before a .500 mark after that was capped by a tiebreaking loss at Minnesota for the AL Central title.

''It's probably different (reasons) every year,'' Leyland said. ''Two of those years, it wasn't what we wanted, but we still went to the World Series and played the 163rd game for the (AL Central) championship.''

Cabrera is taking some of the blame for the latest post-break slump.

''Starting the second half in Cleveland, I didn't do my job,'' said Cabrera, who was 2 for 14 with two RBIs as the last-place Indians swept Detroit. ''What I and we need to do is look in the mirror, turn it around, play more relaxed and make something happen.''

Rookie Brennan Boesch looks like he's trying too hard, hitting just .120 with no homers and only one RBI after hitting .342 with 12 homers and 49 RBIs over the first 65 games of his career.

''I think he's pressing a little bit,'' Leyland said. ''You can almost see him grinding with a little tension at the plate.

''He was in a groove. The four days (off) might've been bad for him.''

They might've been for the Tigers, too.

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