Now, after six weeks of mostly heart-wrenching struggles, the Tigers aren't feeling invincible anymore -- nor are many of their fans so optimistic. Their once-powerful offense, which seemed to specialize in dramatic home runs and walk-off hits, first sputtered, then coughed. Then it finally shut down like a powerful V-8 engine running out of gas as Detroit staggered along, going only 13-24 since its high-water mark.

The proximate cause of Detroit's slump was plain to see. The Tigers' attack, which wasn't known as one of the great lineups of all-time but which had been more than good enough when accompanying the league's best pitching and defense, literally disintegrated. Triumphal home run trots were replaced by catchable long flies; sharp singles through the infield were replaced by rally-killing GDPs. Enemy pitchers suddenly found the key to stifling Detroit's offense so thoroughly that the club's hitters looked more like Tabbies than Tigers.

Fortunately for his team as well as Detroit fans, manager Jim Leyland has been a rock of stability though both the triumphal march and the subsequent tribulations. As his team played poorly in one after another high-profile matchup against the AL's big boys, losing 16 of 23 to New York and Chicago, Leyland kept his perspective as tight as the leash he kept on his team. The veteran skipper knew his team was good, but he also knew he couldn't take anything for granted, and his no-nonsense approach was exactly what the Tigers' doctor ordered.

Still, after losing three of four to red-hot second-place Minnesota during Sept. 7-10, including a brutal 12-1 loss to Johan Santana in the finale of that series, the doubts doubled. Now, with 13 games left on the Tigers' schedule, some of the same pundits who had predicted Cleveland's inevitable overtaking of Chicago a year ago are forecasting that the Twins are on the verge of overhauling the Tigers.

Fair enough: Everyone's entitled to an opinion, and the difficulty in correctly predicting the future in baseball is one of the things that makes the game so fascinating. But why, exactly, is this inevitable? Because Detroit has played .351 ball since Aug. 7 while Minnesota was playing .605 ball? Because the Tigers were stumbling while the Twins were streaking? Which proves what, exactly? When the Tigers were streaking and the Twins were struggling earlier in the season, didn't those games count?

Though he is in no way the primary reason for Detroit's collapse, first baseman Sean Casey seems like the poster child for the team's suddenly punchless lineup. Brought over from the Pirates at the trade deadline to replace slumping Chris Shelton , Casey was supposed to give the team some punch at first base as well as a strong left-handed bat in the lineup, Instead, Casey has contributed to the toothless Tigers: in 41 games and 138 at-bats, the veteran has hit only .254 with a .370 slugging and only 10 extra-base hits (including three home runs).

Aside from his lack of production, Casey also is emblematic of a chink in the Tigers' armor: a misguided faith in veteran NL hitters. When second baseman Placido Polanco went down with a shoulder injury, Detroit quickly moved to acquire Neifi Perez and his sub-.300 career OBP. Why? Partly because Detroit needed more infield depth, and partly because the club lacked faith in Omar Infante . But the move was mostly made with the belief that Perez was actually a good player, something that his record clearly does not support. Leyland wrote Perez's name into the starting lineup for nine of the first 10 games after his acquisition, including batting him leadoff twice, before Perez was relegated to his proper role of utility player. Meanwhile, Infante, not a great player by any stretch, hit .400 in August with a .948 OPS and is hitting .288 on the season with a .753 OPS.

Polanco, the player Perez replaced, was another NL vet whose reputation far exceeded his production. Though he was hitting close to .300 when he went down, Polanco's lack of both on-base and power resulted in a weak .684 OPS, which was even more damaging as he batted exclusively in the No. 2 or No. 1 spots in the order.

Another NL vet in whom Detroit had more faith than was warranted was Dmitri Young . The momentary controversy over Young's unexpected release was overblown, as Young had long ago ceased to be an important part of the club. Young hasn't had a really good season since 2003 and, while his switch-hitting bat was sorely needed from the left side of the plate, his performance since returning from the DL can fairly be described as mediocre at best.

It's no secret that Detroit jumped off to huge lead mostly due to its golden pitching and sterling defense. The biggest factor in Detroit's downturn, though, is as obvious as it is hard to reverse: an utter lack of plate discipline. When a team is going good, as the Tigers certainly were through July, aggressive, free-swinging hitters who deposit a good number of pitches in the bleachers don't seem like an Achilles' heel. Prior to the All-Star break, the Tigers' offense wasn't great, but it was more than good enough to support baseball's best pitching staff, which was almost half an earned run better than the second-place Padres, a remarkable achievement for an AL team.

With the Tigers in the middle of the pack in the AL in runs and batting average, third in home runs, and fourth in slugging, it was pretty easy to overlook the fact that the club was a lowly 10th in OBP at .330 at the start of the second half. But two important groups were not overlooking that key weakness: advance scouts and pitching coaches for other teams. Seeing a lineup with mistake hitters and guess hitters, with most of them perpetually "set on dead-red," opposing teams strategized on how to get Detroit hitters out.

When Detroit started to slide, the overly aggressive nature of the Tigers' lineup actually worked against them. While disciplined hitters might swing at more marginal pitches than usual when they're pressing, free-swingers tend to expand their strike zone to airplane hangar-like dimensions as they try to hit the proverbial five-run home run. Detroit was already having trouble with top veteran pitchers who used their moxie and good command to stifle the Tigers' sluggers, but now even mediocre pitchers could now take advantage of the lineup. And when Detroit's lineup started swinging at any pitch within Doppler radar range of the strike zone, things went south in a hurry.

If one chances to wonder why the Tigers are full of hackers, a survey of the people in their system responsible for the care and feeding of their hitters is revealing. Starting at the top, with big-league hitting coach Don Slaught, only one of the system's hitting coaches or managers showed any discipline as a major league batter. Most were classic free-swingers with moderate or better power. (Note: NBB is non-intentional walks, AB is at-bats).

- Major league hitting coach: Don Slaught (283 NBB/4,063 AB), first season as professional coach. - Triple-A manager: Larry Parrish (450 NBB/6,792 AB), fourth season in Toledo, 10th season as manager in minors and majors. - Triple-A hitting coach: Leon Durham (348 NBB/3,587 AB), sixth season in Toledo. - Double-A manager: Duffy Dyer (179 NBB/1,993 AB), second season in Erie, 10th season as minor league manager. - Double-A hitting coach: Pete Incaviglia (339 NBB/4,233 AB), third season in Erie. - Advanced Class A manager: Mike Rojas (unknown), second season in Lakeland, 11th season as minor league manager. - Advanced Class A hitting coach: Larry Herndon (320 NBB/4,877 AB), second season in Lakeland. - Class A manager: Matt Walbeck (129 NBB/2,109 AB), third season in West Michigan as well as third season as pro coach or manager. - Short-season Class A manager: Tom Brookens (269 NBB/3,865 AB), second season in Oneonta as well as second season as pro coach or manager. - Rookie-league hitting coach: Benny Distefano (25 NBB/360 AB), first season as coach anywhere. - Roving hitting instructor: Toby Harrah (1102 NBB/7,402 AB).

Class A hitting coach Tony Jaramillo, who played only two seasons in the Texas organization plus four seasons of independent ball, short-season Class A hitting coach Basilio Cabrera, and rookie-league manager Kevin Bradshaw never made it to the majors.

What leaps out of this list is the fact that Harrah was really the only disciplined hitter in the bunch, but he obviously can't have too much of an effect when he's not spending every day with the organization's young hitters like their own coaches and managers are. Jim Leyland, with 165 walks and 1221 career minor league at-bats, also bucked the trend to an extent, though it doesn't seem to hasn't translated well.

A pattern as pronounced as that doesn't occur by accident. The Tigers' corporate culture has for the past decade been distinctly NL-oriented, first under GM Randy Smith and now under GM Dave Dombrowski. Even though the differences between the two leagues have lessened recently, the NL philosophy is still biased in favor of aggressive, high-average hitters who can play the small-ball game and against slow-footed sluggers who take tons of pitches and walks while patiently waiting for their chance to drive the ball.

The big problem with that philosophy is that the AL has been for decades first and foremost a power-based league where stealing bases, hitting-and-running, and bunting are largely irrelevant. Both the media and 2005 White Sox themselves waxed poetic over that team's ability to play small ball last season, but it was truly the thumpers in Chicago's lineup that powered the team to a world championship.

With the cachet that "Moneyball" has acquired since Michael Lewis' best-selling book made Billy Beane a national figure -- especially since the scientific and sabermetric Red Sox won the 2004 World Series -- very few baseball men are willing to dismiss on-base percentage outright, no matter how they really feel. However, paying lip service to getting on base is not the same as actually focusing on doing so, and many teams that reject the so-called "Moneyball" philosophy don't say so up-front.

The numbers, however, tell the tale of where the organization's emphasis lies. Detroit is a pitiful 26th in baseball in on-base percentage at .327, ahead of only three last-place clubs (the Mariners, Cubs and Devil Rays) and the Brewers. Yet Detroit ranks a respectable 9th in MLB in team batting average at .273 and 9th in home runs with 182, isolating the critical missing ingredient: walks.

Further illustrating the problem are other telling stats. Detroit is last in the league in MLB with a 59.6 percent stolen base success rate; it is also tied for third in the AL in sacrifice bunts. The Tigers are second in strikeouts in the AL to the Indians, something that has caused a lot of concern in Detroit lately. This overemphasis on not striking out paradoxically contributes to the team's offensive problems, masking its lack of plate discipline because it focuses on the wrong stat.

Needless to say, strikeouts aren't desirable in themselves, but they are certainly acceptable when part of an offense that also walks a lot and hits a lot of home runs, as the 2006 Indians and their third-ranking AL offense demonstrate. The top two AL clubs in runs scored, the Yankees and White Sox, are also in the top half of the league in strikeouts.

Detroit's brain trust is now privately saying that it will address this systemic problem before next season, and the recent firing of its Double-A coaching staff was just the start of a major realignment. For the rest of 2006, however, the Tigers' big-league lineup is going to remain vulnerable to any pitcher who has the smarts and command to tease the anxious hitters to swing at marginal pitches.

Tigers' fans should pray their club's outstanding pitching holds up for another two weeks and that enemy hurlers continue to make mistakes, throwing fastballs in the strike zone or hanging breaking balls that can be ripped for home runs -- because Detroit's hackers aren't going to suddenly start working the count and forcing opposing pitchers into dangerous hitters' counts anytime soon.

Gary Gillette is editor of The 2006 ESPN Baseball Encyclopedia, which was published in March by Sterling. Click here to order a copy. Gary can be reached via e-mail at GGillette@247Baseball.com.

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