This story was excerpted from Jason Beck’s Tigers Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.
The Tigers’ just-completed road trip meant two more stops on the Miguel Cabrera retirement tour, which meant two more retirement gifts to bring home. The Rangers gave Cabrera a custom leather horse saddle. Tigers clubhouse manager Dan Ross deftly found a way to fit the saddle onto the team plane, unlike the rocking chair the Nationals gave him in May, which had to be shipped separately.
The Rockies gave Cabrera something more portable: The Florida and Detroit panels from Coors Field’s old manual out-of-town scoreboard, along with a two-night stay at The Broadmoor resort in Colorado Springs. Every road series from here on out is Cabrera’s last visit, so there’s more to come. It’s a labor of love for the Tigers and their support staff. It’s also a bit ironic.
One thing about Cabrera’s final season Detroit hasn’t had to carry is, well, Cabrera. The former Triple Crown winner is more than carrying his share of the load in the Tigers’ lineup, and on some nights, he’s providing a throwback to the days when he was the cornerstone of Detroit’s offense.
After ending May with a .196 average (18-for-92) and a .511 OPS, Cabrera is batting .305 (18-for-59) with an .832 OPS since the start of June, with five doubles, a home run and five RBIs. He has a .370 average on balls put in play in that span.
Statcast shows the difference: After struggling against fastballs in April (.163) and May (.190), he’s batting .367 (11-for-30) off fastballs since. There’s no big difference in exit velocity or launch angle, but he’s using the field.
There was no major adjustment, Cabrera said. The key was repetition. The better he hits, the more he plays. The more he plays, the more pitches he sees, the more swings he gets and the better he hits.
“I think my hitting, my approach is about timing,” Cabrera said. “If I don’t have my timing, I don’t see the ball very well, and I swing at bad pitches. I think with my timing, I’m able to get better at-bats, and that’s really important. When you get better at-bats, the good pitches are going to come.”
The at-bats follow because his manager knows what to expect.
“His at-bats have been consistent, which is key,” A.J. Hinch said. “He still conducts a really professional at-bat, and it’s been big for us. His contributions have been noteworthy. …
“I think he’s re-established himself and what his game plan is and what his goal is for the at-bat. He still wants to drive the ball out of the ballpark — he got one to the warning track [Saturday] — but overall, he just wants to move the ball forward and get on base. That’s been happening more and more often.”
Of course, there’s a health component to this, too. At this point last season, Cabrera was batting .308, including .403 on balls put in play, and garnering All-Star consideration, eventually leading to a spot on the American League team. But he was also an everyday player, starting 68 of Detroit’s first 81 games. That workload caught up with him, and Hinch had to pare back his playing time over the final weeks to watch his knees and back.
The knee is obviously still an issue. Some days, it feels great. Some days, it doesn’t.
But what pushes him through isn’t his statistics, the retirement gifts or any individual accolades. It’s the chance at being part of a team he believes is on the verge of becoming very good — one that could contend down the stretch in a muddled AL Central as injured players return.
Cabrera watched good friend Albert Pujols wind down his career last year in a playoff race with the Cardinals. Imagine Cabrera, whose batting titles and Triple Crown came while carrying Detroit to postseason berths, getting one more chance to push the Tigers along.
“We have an opportunity to be good for a long time,” Cabrera said. “It’s going to take some time. Hopefully sooner rather than later, we start to play over .500, and we’ll see.”