Miguel Cabrera's biggest games: 5 days defined him in first 6 seasons as a Detroit Tiger
It wasn’t quite on the level of his walk-off homer as a 20-year-old in his MLB debut with the Florida Marlins, but Miguel Cabrera didn’t wait long to make an impression in his first game with the Detroit Tigers, either.
On March 31, 2008, Cabrera crushed a 82.6 mph changeup into the left-field stands for his first home run wearing the Old English “D,” giving the Tigers a 3-0 lead in the fifth inning and instantly validating his eight-year, $152.4 million contract (plus the six prospects sent to the Marlins in the trade that brought him to the Motor City). “That one,” Cabrera told reporters afterward, “I don’t think I hit very well.”
Then again, the Tigers went on to lose that opener to the Kansas City Royals, 5-4, in 11 innings. The challenge of meeting sky-high expectations seemingly became the story of Cabrera’s early years in Detroit.
The first six seasons of Cabrera’s tenure, just like that Opening Day, brought incredible personal successes: Cabrera won three batting titles, two home run titles and two RBI titles. His average season featured a .327 average with 38 homers and 123 RBIs — all-around skills at the plate not seen since the days of Hank Greenberg. Awards? Cabrera made four All-Star teams, won three Silver Slugger awards (at first base in 2010 and third base in 2012-13), placed in the top five in MVP voting five times and, of course, in 2012, he won baseball’s first Triple Crown in 45 years.
But like that Opening Day, those first six seasons also brought frustrating endings, as arguably the most successful era in franchise history — featuring consecutive playoff appearances (four of ‘em!) for the first time since 1934-35 — was defined by flops at the end: A loss in 2009’s Game 163, a run of blowouts in the 2011 ALCS, a sweep in the 2012 World Series and a six-game loss in the 2013 ALCS.
Through it all, though, Cabrera kept crushing the ball, continuing his ascension in the annals of both MLB and Tigers history. As fellow Venezuelan Carlos Guillen said after Cabrera’s first homer as a Tiger: “In the paper, it’s going to be a home run. So he hit it pretty good.”
Here, then, are five of the games Cabrera ‘hit it pretty good” from 2008-13:
July 21, 2008: Five alive vs. Royals
Tigers 19, Royals 4: Despite his Opening Day homer, Cabrera’s first three months as a Tiger were mostly underwhelming; the team went 42-39 while Cabrera posted a slash line of .281/.350/.459. But July brought hotter temperatures and a hotter Miggy, with six home runs and only nine strikeouts over 15 games. And then the Tigers hit Kansas City’s Kauffman Stadium; in one game, Cabrera raised his batting average nine points, going from .281 to .290 on the back of a 5-for-6 performance, including a pair of doubles and six RBIs.
Cabrera opened his assault on the Royals Luke Hochevar with a full-count ground-ball single the opposite way to lead off the second inning. In the third, Cabrera faced Hochevar again with two outs and runners on second and third; this time, he sent the second pitch of the at-bat on a line into right for another single. In the fifth, Cabrera vs. Hochevar once again went in Miggy’s favor, but with a long drive into the left-center gap to score runners from first and third. Cabrera struck out against reliever Rob Tejeda in the seventh, but the Tigers continued to tee off, bringing him to the plate with runners on second and third and no outs in the eighth. After a wild second pitch from reliever Jimmy Gobble to score a run, Cabrera sent the next one dribbling through the hole at second for his fourth RBI. But he wasn’t done; the Tigers batted around to bring Cabrera up against new reliever Juan Carlos Oviedo with the bases loaded and two outs. Cabrera sent the fifth pitch into the right-field gap to score two more.
Cabrera’s sudden hotness was no surprise to Jim Leyland: "When his concentration is locked in," the Tigers manager told reporters, "he's going to hit." And so he did: Cabrera finished the season with 13 doubles, a triple and 20 home runs over the Tigers’ final 63 games to lead the American League in homers (37) and total bases (331).
April 10, 2009: A slammin’ start
Tigers 15, Rangers 2: Cabrera’s first Tigers home opener featured a home run, but also a pair of strikeouts with the Tigers trailing or tied late, setting the stage for a dismal 74-88 record. In his second home opener, Cabrera was determined not to repeat that disappointment, as he told the Freep: "I put a lot of pressure on myself," Cabrera said. "This year, I go out there and do my job and go play relaxed. Last year, I think I threw a lot of at-bats away. Right now, I focus better. I don't try to do too much." Good call: Cabrera went 3-for-5 while driving in 6 RBIs — four of which came on a grand slam on the first pitch of his fourth-inning at-bat off Rangers righty Kris Benson.
The homer traveled 424 feet to left-center, clearing the fence at virtually the farthest point of Comerica Park and impressing at least one observer wearing the Old English D: "That was a long way to hit a baseball in 55-degree weather," third baseman Brandon Inge told reporters. "Heck, it was a long way to hit it in 90-degree weather." Cabrera kept hitting it long, though, tacking on a two-out, two-run double to the same spot in the seventh inning. The output nearly left Leyland speechless. Nearly: “He's just awful good,” Leyland said. “That's all I can say. He's more than awful good."
May 28, 2010: Three for all vs. Oakland
Athletics 5, Tigers 4: After taking two games off for the birth of his daughter Isabella, Cabrera announced his return to the Tigers’ lineup in a hurry — he launched the first pitch of his two-out at-bat against Oakland righty Ben Sheets into the right-center stands for a sudden 2-1 Tigers lead in the bottom of the first inning. After the A’s took the lead back in the fourth, Cabrera homered again (though he waited until the second pitch of the at-bat to pull it into the left-field seats) to tie it up. The blast wowed Oakland manager Bob Geren, who told the Freep’s John Lowe: “The pitch was inside and might not even have been a strike. He got the bat head out." But the A’s grabbed the lead again with a pair of runs in the top of the ninth. The good news for the Tigers: Cabrera homered again, sending the third pitch from closer Andrew Bailey into the left-field seats again. The bad news: It was a leadoff shot, and the Tigers went down, 1-2-3, after Cabrera’s third home run of the game. The four RBIs put Cabrera atop the AL leaderboard with 44 — he finished with 126 RBIs and became the first Tiger to lead the league in RBIs since Cecil Fielder in 1992.
Oct. 1, 2012: Crown ‘em in K.C.
Tigers 6, Royals 3: It’s a measure of Miggy’s greatness that we’re actually skipping a game — Sept. 18, 2012, vs. the A’s in Detroit — in which Cabrera went 3-for-4 with a grand slam and 6 RBIs. But, as Miggy said as the Tigers celebrated their second straight AL Central title, "I want the championship. Everybody's excited (about the Triple Crown). And that's good. But I want to win." Why not both? On this night in Kansas City, Cabrera virtually clinched the division and the Triple Crown, going 4-for-5 with a home run. Miggy opened with a groundout to short; it was the last time the Royals would retire him. In the fourth, Cabrera sent a 1-0 slider the opposite way for a single. In the sixth, Cabrera went the opposite way again, this time on a sinker on the far edge of the plate to take the AL homer lead with 44 (one up on Texas’ Josh Hamilton). In the seventh, another single, again to right (though this one dropped in on a loop). Finally, in the ninth, the Royals got a minor victory: Cabrera finally kept the ball on the ground … singling up the middle.
A few minutes later, when first baseman Prince Fielder squeezed his glove around a throw from shortstop Jhonny Peralta, the Tigers were AL Central champions, and Cabrera appeared to have a virtual lock on MLB’s first Triple Crown since 1967. His four hits raised his batting average from .325 to .329, on the same night Minnesota’s Joe Mauer went 1-for-5 to drop to .322. It wasn’t clinched yet — not until Hamilton and Mauer each put up 0-fers in their final games — but still, Cabrera knew he could finally relax. "There's no pressure because the biggest thing was that we won the (division) championship," Cabrera told the Freep’s Drew Sharp during the Tigers’ postgame party. "Now that's done, we can start to get ready for the playoffs. That's all I look at the last games. We're playing good baseball right now and we want to keep playing good baseball."
May 19, 2013: Miggy goes three deep again
Rangers 11, Tigers 8: Good baseball was not what the Tigers played a few months later in Arlington, Texas. But it was historic, as Miguel Cabrera went 4-for-5 with three home runs and five RBIs. After singling in the first inning, Cabrera hit a three-run homer in the third, a solo shot in the fifth and another solo shot in the eighth. Even more impressive, his second home run — a shot that bounced off the top of the center field fence in Arlington, Texas — tied former Tigers great Hank Greenberg at 331 career homers, good for 102nd at the time. When asked how it felt to compare to the best hitters in history, Cabrera was demure, replying, “My career is short right now. There is a long way to go to say that.” Others weren’t as unwilling to make big comparisons. The next day, ESPN’s Buster Olney broke out all the greats when summarizing Cabrera’s tear: “Watching Cabrera in 2013 is like seeing Babe Ruth in 1927, Ted Williams in 1949 or Hank Aaron in 1959: a Hall-of-Fame-caliber hitter at his peak, doing stuff that few people — or nobody — have done before."
Cabrera finished 2013 with 44 homers, 137 RBIs and an MLB-leading .348 average. (He also led the majors in on-base percentage, at .442, slugging percentage, at .636, and OPS, at 1.078.) Unlike 2012, it was no Triple Crown, but it was enough to earn Cabrera his second AL MVP award (with 23 of 30 first-place votes). But the Tigers were stymied in the postseason again, falling in six games to the Boston Red Sox in the ALCS, and Leyland announced his retirement. It signaled the end of an era, for both the Tigers and Cabrera, though that wouldn’t be fully revealed for a few more seasons.
FRIDAY’S PART 3: Starting to slide …
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: 5 days defined Miguel Cabrera in first 6 seasons with Detroit Tigers
