DETROIT (AP) -Champs or chumps.
Todd Jones says the Detroit Tigers have fit one of those polar descriptions in a season that started with a flop, was followed up with a strong run and an uneven stretch.
“That’s just the nature of the beast,” Detroit’s closer said Tuesday before opening a homestand against the Cleveland Indians. “No team can avoid bad games, but the key is to avoid backing them up two or three times in a row.
“We put ourselves in a deep hole that we’re just starting to get out of.”
The Tigers generated a lot of hype during a busy offseason, highlighted by the addition of All-Stars Miguel Cabrera and Edgar Renteria. A series of moves seemed to make a good team potentially great and raised expectations for a franchise being outspent by only the New York Yankees.
But they started with a thud.
Detroit lost its first seven games, started 2-10 and sunk to 24-36 after losing to Cleveland.
From June 7 to July 7, though, the Tigers led the majors with 20 wins and lost just eight times.
“We’re supposed to play good like we are now,” Cabrera said. “But we’re in third place and we want to be in first.”
Even though Detroit seemed to turn its season when it went 18-4 to be a season-high two games above .500, it lost four of the next five games.
In one of those setbacks, Detroit was shut out for the 10th time to lead the AL in the dubious category and more than triple last season’s total. If the Tigers are shut out once more this week, they will match the largest increase in shutouts from one year to the next All-Star game since 1933, according to STATS.
“We’ve got to start swinging the bats better again,” manager Jim Leyland said.
During the 28-game run that got the Tigers into the AL Central race with the streaking Chicago White Sox and Minnesota Twins, they hit nearly .300, had 35 homers and a 3.56 ERA.
“It’s pretty simple. It’s in the numbers,” Leyland said. “We pitched better, (Curtis) Granderson got hot and (Placido) Polanco got hot.”
Detroit’s starting pitchers combined for a 15-8 record and 3.43 ERA over the 39 games entering Tuesday’s matchup against the Indians. Granderson hit .444 during a 16-game stretch and Polanco has hit about .350 since late April.
“They’re hitting on more cylinders now,” Cleveland’s Casey Blake said.
The Motor City’s ballclub, however, has not had all of the players they were counting on when it assembled a roster with a payroll of nearly $139 million.
Dontrelle Willis, who was acquired in the Cabrera trade with the Florida Marlins, has been such a disappointment that the Tigers sent him to their spring training complex hoping he can figure out how to throw the ball over the plate again.
Jeremy Bonderman, another starter, is likely lost for the season because of a shoulder ailment. Reigning AL batting champion Magglio Ordonez and utility player Brandon Inge are on the disabled list with oblique injuries.
Granderson started the season on the DL and designated hitter Gary Sheffield also spent time on it. Key relievers Joel Zumaya and Fernando Rodney missed most of the first half of the season with shoulder injuries.
“It was just a matter of time for us to turn things around,” Granderson said. “The biggest key going forward is doing well in our intradivision games because those are all going to be big series.”
After playing the last-place Indians, the Tigers host the second-place Twins for a four-game series heading into the All-Star break and play the first-place White Sox six times in late July and early August.
“Do I like our position? No,” Leyland said. “Obviously, we didn’t play well at the start, but we’ve played really well lately. We’re in striking distance.
“But we have to play well and hope that against a couple of those teams head on, you do better. You hope that you make more progress to get it down to where it gets a little hairy come September.”
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