Tigers' Cabrera no longer 'having fun,' admits team struggles affecting his play
Miguel Cabrera is human after all.
The Tigers' slugger has been slumping at the plate recently, and says the team's overall struggles have been weighing on him.
It's been a difficult season for the Tigers, who aren't playing for a postseason berth in September for the first time since 2010. They're also on pace for their first losing season since 2008, Cabrera's first season in Detroit.
Miggy, who is 1-for-21 in his last seven games, seems to be pressing as of late and says both his timing and his swing are off.
"It's kind of like you create bad habits because we know we don't go anywhere," he said (via MLB.com), "but we try to push ourselves too much. When we make mistakes, we want to do extra and we want to do something we don't have to. What we need to do is play hard, try to go out there and make it happen. Stop trying to push too hard."
Despite his recent slump, Cabrera is still in line to win this year's AL batting title, which would be his fourth in five years. But his lead is shrinking fast -- Cabrera had a 37-point lead on Aug. 29, but has seen it shrink to 14 as his average plummeted from .351 to .335 over the past week.
But for Cabrera, his personal success means nothing if it's not helping the team.
"It's hard when you're losing games. It's hard to focus on what you want and what the team wants, because if the team's not doing good, you know you're not going to do good. But hopefully we finish strong and make something happen."
With no postseason goal, the final few weeks will be tough for Cabrera. But Miggy says he'll push through, with a different goal in mind.
"The past two or three weeks, no, it's no fun at all," he said. "It's hard, man, when you lose a lot of games and all the stuff happens this year. It's kind of hard, but we need to keep pushing, we have big series at home. We're going to give something back to the fans, trying to play good baseball.
