Leyland lets loose on underperforming Tigers

CHICAGO – In his hotel room only a night earlier, a sense of calm had enveloped Jim Leyland. Somehow, in this most embarrassing of times, he had managed to restrain his incendiary temper that, legend has it, once caused him to deliver a fierce tongue-lashing to his Colorado Rockies team in the buff, a cigarette with an inch-long ash dangling from his lips.

Not this year, Leyland told himself, a moment he recalled Sunday morning before his Detroit Tigers took on the Chicago White Sox.

“Take it easy,” Leyland said. “There’s no sense in yelling and screaming at people. Let’s just wait and see what happens.”

What happened was another shutout, the second blanking in a row and fourth the mighty Tigers have suffered this season, and the establishment, too, of Leyland’s official breaking point. Off he went following the 11-0 loss that dropped the Tigers to 2-10, his voice permeating the brick walls at U.S. Cellular Field and ricocheting off the doors that tried their best to insulate Detroit’s clubhouse from the rest of the world.

Actually, it was quite like a fallout shelter, the Tigers trying to isolate themselves from Leyland’s nuclear meltdown. No one dared explain how a lineup that threatened to cross the 1,000-run barrier has been shut out four times, just as no one could answer how a team with a $138.7 million payroll could start 0-7, just as no one knew what to say when Leyland yelled and screamed and refused any longer to watch his team potentially send its season sewer-bound in the first month.

“If I wanted you guys to know what I said to the team,” Leyland told reporters, “I’d invite you in here.”

OK, then. A multiple-choice deduction, in lieu:

a) From the sixth through the eighth innings, White Sox pitchers threw 21 pitches. In those innings, the Tigers swung at first pitches three times – twice by Edgar Renteria. The longest inning was Javier Vazquez’s 22-pitch second, and the next-longest was the ninth, when Nick Masset threw 16. Not only can’t the Tigers hit, they’re allowing opposing pitchers to throw more warm-up pitches than real ones.

b) #%*! @%$&#!! %#$@#$^&#*$@#!!!

Presumably it was a lot of a) and a fair bit of b), much of the sentiments interspersed. Two weeks of frustration spilled out, all of it rightful, as the Tigers now have the ignominy of scoring the fewest runs in baseball (33) and allowing the most (78).

Though Leyland had brokered the peace treaty with himself, the Tigers could sense otherwise. They know the walk, the cadence, the glower and the suddenness with which it shifts, Leyland turning gray like the sky ready to open up on the unsuspecting below.

“That’s what I love about my skip, man,” Tigers DH Gary Sheffield said before Sunday’s game. “He’ll tell you that you suck. That’s what I appreciate him for. I know I suck. We know we suck. But I don’t see nobody in there hanging their head and feeling sorry for themselves. Yeah, we suck. But we’ll see who sucks at the end.”

That’s been the rallying cry since the opening-series sweep against Kansas City. The losses mounted, the injuries piled up, the embarrassment broadened and the Tigers did their best Bobby McFerrin, not worrying and being happy, or at least trying to give themselves reasons to be.

“You’ve seen teams start off horribly and end up fine after everyone has written them off,” said Tigers center fielder Curtis Granderson, the sparkplug who hasn’t played this season because of a broken finger. “Look at the Yankees last year.”

New York started 21-29 last season and rallied to win the American League wild card. Like Leyland says, a nice winning streak and this is all a funny memory. The difference is, the Yankees didn’t face nearly the health issues that hamper the Tigers. In addition to Granderson, Sheffield is playing with a balky shoulder, first baseman Carlos Guillen is out with a hamstring pull, starter Dontrelle Willis is on the disabled list with a hyperextended knee and relievers Joel Zumaya and Fernando Rodney are out indefinitely.

Detroit is taking this adding-insult-to-injury thing a little too seriously.

“I feel like everybody’s laughing right now,” Tigers third baseman Miguel Cabrera said.

They are, emboldened every day by something new. On Sunday, it was the fifth inning, Orlando Cabrera on second after doubling off Kenny Rogers. White Sox DH Jim Thome lifted a high popup toward third base. Cabrera, more svelte than last year, perhaps, but no more able at third, took two steps toward the ball, tangled his feet with umpire Doug Eddings’ and fell down. Rogers, distracted by Cabrera’s tumble, lost track of the ball and stood in foul territory. And plop went the ball, aided back inside the baseline by the wind, about five feet fair inside the third-base bag, the weirdest single this season.

“That’s something I’ve never seen before in baseball,” Leyland said. “That tells you how bad it’s been going for us right now.”

If there’s any solace, the situation can’t get much worse. Even with the injuries, the Tigers have the talent of a playoff team. Cabrera won’t hit .175 with cap-gun pop. Sheffield won’t slug .214. The chances of the Tigers getting shut out another four times this season are minute.

And best of all, Cleveland, the team that won the AL Central last year and figured Detroit’s competition for the title this season, is suffering its own travails, a 5-7 record putting the Indians in fourth place.

During the Tigers’ run to the World Series two years ago, Leyland reflexively reminded that managers really don’t do much and that credit shouldn’t be heaped on him. He recognized there would be a time like this, when it would be easy to blame him for all the problems.

“I worry about getting the ship righted,” Leyland said, “because the ship’s not going right.”

And yet as much as he tries – and Leyland tried Sunday – the Tigers are more about themselves than their pilot. No one remembers that Edward John Smith was captain of the Titanic. They just know that it crashed, in all of its opulent glory.