2 For 3, 5 For 7

I know this is going to get many of my Detroit brethren riled up, but before the calendar turns to September, but I’m going on record:  Detroit will not win the AL Central, and will have a dogfight to win the wildcard.  Part of my brain is saying Minnesota and Chicago will pass them and leave them out of the playoffs entirely, but I’m just not quite willing to go that far.  Not that I’d mind seeing that.

If the Tigers miss the playoffs, that would be one of the great collapses in history.  To go in to the final month of September with a 4-1/2 game lead in your division and the best record in your league (the Mets have a better record now) would have to be tremendously disappointing.  Now, Tigers fans will say (Rob included) that if you’d have offered them 90 wins and a playoff run going into this season, they’d have grabbed it in a heartbeat.  And they would have.  But now that they’re expected to win, they’re struggling.  They’re finding out that teams are lining up their rotations so that they face their best pitching, and that makes it tougher.

I think the thing that will save them is that the schedule starts to get a little easier for them.  17 of the last 28 games are at home.  They face the Royals for 6, Seattle for 3, and Baltimore for 4, so that’s 13 of their last 28 games against losing teams.  They only have 7 games left against their 2 main competitors (White Sox & Twins).  The Twins have 14 games left against losing teams, but 4 of those are against Cleveland, who’ve been playing much better lately.  They’ve got 16 road games left. Chicago also has 14 games left against losing teams, including the Indians 7 times.  The mitigating factor for them is they’ve got 3 games left against the Red Sux, who don’t look like a winning team anymore (thanks to the Yankees crushing them).

If the Tigers end up as the wildcard team, it’s likely they’ll have to play New York, and the Tiggers haven’t shown that they’re in the same class with the Yankees.  The Yanks took 5 of the games they played, and if Torre had elected to go with either Mo or Farnsworth to close out Wednesday night’s game (instead of the 3rd string closer, Scott Proctor), it would have been 6 of 7.  Bonderman, instead of Ledezma, helped get A-Rod out of his slump.  We’ve got Matsui coming back later in September.  Mussina should also be back soon.  Plus, we won’t have to start the likes of Jeff Karstens.  We can go with Randy, Moose, Wang, and Lidle (I think Wright becomes odd man out).  The Tigers get to go with a bung of kids who’ve never been in the playoffs, plus Kenny..

Tiger fans, you’ve had a pleasant ride so far.  But the ride’s almost over, and much like a ride at Cedar Point, sometimes the ride comes to an abrupt halt back in the station.