A.J. Hinch hates to talk about the standings. So I went to Comerica Park on Monday to ask the Detroit Tigers manager about the standings.
OK, not really. But sort of. In a roundabout way, at least.
The Tigers opened a four-game homestand Monday night against the Minnesota Twins in what seemed like one of their last-gasp chances to salvage another disappointing season.
This series, plus next week’s two-game set in Minneapolis, marks the Tigers’ last reasonable chance to make up significant ground on the American League Central Division leaders. If the Tigers have even the slimmest hope of winning baseball’s weakest division and locking up an improbable postseason appearance for the first time since 2014, that hope will either live on or die this week.
I know. It’s almost laughable to think the Tigers have any chance, especially after their 9-3 loss Monday that dropped them 10 games behind the Twins.
And yet they kind of own the division. Even after Monday’s loss, the Tigers are 18-13 against the AL Central and have had the best record within the division for much of the season. They’ve held their own against the Twins, too, splitting eight games.
While the idea of a Tigers postseason is laughable, they certainly aren’t a joke within the division.
I was still surprised when Hinch agreed with me when I asked him before the game if this series means something different than other series.
“It does mean something,” he said. “I don’t mind it that way because these guys are in first place and you’re playing against them, and there’s always a time for you to stand up for yourself on your home field against a team that’s you know that right now is in first place.
“So I think yeah, it matters. It should matter if it were reversed, too. If we were in first and they were in our position, the games are gonna matter.”
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Of course, if you’ve watched enough Major League Baseball, you know teams have to be myopic over 162 games. Sure, they want to win every game and every series. But they can’t get caught up in every game’s outcome and its bearing on the standings.
Hinch knows this better than anyone.
“So I’m not sure that I’m into the exaggerated (thinking) like ‘oh, this is a game that we should try harder or do more,’ because we should do take the same approach every day,” he said. “But when you’re facing what has been the leader in the division for the majority of the year, it should be important and it should give you an opportunity to see where you stand.”
That’s what I think this series and, frankly, the final two months of the season are about for the Tigers: an opportunity to see where they stand.
Baseball is forever counting and measuring numbers and performances. The Tigers have promising young players like Riley Greene, Spencer Torkelson and Tarik Skubal, who should be the cornerstones of this rebuild years into the future.
It’s tempting to think all the losing the Tigers have done last year and this year doesn’t wear on a player and his drive to improve, but the dirty little secret about pro athletes is that they’re human, too. Fighting through a long, taxing season and trying to hit well without much protection in the batting order isn’t easy.
Greene is the Tigers’ most talented and important position player and a major reason the team has any hope for the future. But he entered Monday hitting 1-for-12 in his past three games, with just one RBI in his past six games.
That changed Monday, when he broke out of his mini-slump by going 2-for-4 with a double. Before the game, I asked him where his drive to improve comes from amid a difficult season for the team.
“You know, I try not to think about it too much,” he said. “Being selfish, that’s not my thing. I feel like if you go out there every day and you try to be a team player and you do what you can for your team, all your numbers, all the other stuff that people look at will take care of himself.
“A lot a lot of cases, that’s what happens. I feel like once you buy in, like the numbers will take care of themselves and you’ll see a big increase in them.”
Unfortunately, a worthy opponent like the Twins revealed Monday just how much more work the Tigers have in front of them to shore up deficiencies on the mound and in the batter’s box. Greene got better but Alex Lange is suddenly walking way too many hitters.
It isn’t too late for the Tigers to show improvement and maybe make a little noise, but time is definitely running out.
Contact Carlos Monarrez: cmonarrez@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @cmonarrez.