It's on-base percentage. It reflects a much deeper flaw in Detroit's offense than its .274 team batting average, which is ninth in baseball and, by itself, good enough to make a division winner of a team equipped with supreme pitching.

Only three teams -- the Cubs, Mariners and Devil Rays -- have a lower on-base percentage than the Tigers' anemic .326 mark. Only two teams -- Cubs and Mariners -- have fewer walks than the 365 Detroit had amassed through Sunday's 12-1 loss at Minnesota.

Compare those 365 Tigers walks with the 583 drawn by the Red Sox, or by the 571 issued to the Yankees, or the 558 extracted by the walk-conscious A's. Ten teams, including the lamentable Nationals, have 500 or more walks.

Last I checked, walks got you to first base just as effectively as singles, which says everything about why the Tigers have been strangling in so many close games.

Just a sampling of the scores from Detroit's mid-August-to-mid-September slide attest to what a couple of extra free passes might have accomplished: 2-1, 5-4, 4-3, 2-1, 2-0, 4-2, 7-6, 3-1, 2-1, 4-3, 4-3, 4-2.

An inability to draw walks, or to lay off lousy pitches, or to refrain from hacking at the first borderline pitch tossed at them, is why the Tigers can perish 2-1 to the immortal Boof Bonser, which somehow happened Saturday at the Metrodome.

Scouting reports on the Tigers are about as top secret as the phone book. In one manner or another, the marching orders for facing Detroit batters is to throw just about anything but the kitchen sink at them on the first pitch. They'll happily swing away, even if it's Magglio Ordonez leading off an inning.

After the first-pitch swinging strike -- or weak groundout -- pitchers can become even less choosy and disciplined on subsequent serves. They know the Tigers are going to swing, pretty much regardless of location. It can make for fast 1-2-3 innings, not to mention minimalist pitch-counts for opposing starters. Notice how many times the pitch-count tabulator after six innings shows opponent starters at 75-80 pitches, which is a nice way of preserving their arms, as well as the opposing team's bullpens.

The above evidence explains how a pitcher like Nate Robertson can have a glittering 3.84 ERA (it would be lower were it not for a crazy 10-run day against the White Sox last month) and be only 12-12 this season. Robertson can give up one or two runs and have no shot at winning.

The Tigers, again, could get away with a low on-base percentage if they compensated on slugging percentage (it quantifies the percentage of extra-base hits a team amasses). But at .444, they were only 10th in the majors Sunday, which, again, would be good enough to help clinch a title in three or four other divisions.

First base, for example: No position more requires power and run production. The Tigers are 24th (Chris Shelton) and 48th (Sean Casey). Nineteen first basemen have more RBIs than the Tigers' combined RBIs (64) from Shelton and Casey.

How many of those one-run games from the past month might have turned around if Detroit had even middle-of-the-road power production from a first baseman?

The outfield -- another prime area for run production -- features a cleanup hitter (Ordonez) who is 30th in home runs and 12th in RBIs. Craig Monroe is 18th in home runs, but his .310 on-base percentage is low. Ordonez, at .340, is beneath the mean for top-shelf outfielders. Curtis Granderson presents a separate challenge: He leads the AL in strikeouts with 152 and is third overall behind Adam Dunn and Ryan Howard.

Even a fine overall season for Pudge Rodriguez cannot ignore his .324 on-base percentage, 38th among all catchers and 15th among those who have caught at least 100 games in 2006.

How do the Tigers reverse some damaging numbers that can't be undone with three weeks remaining in the regular season and a playoff spot hanging in the balance?

It will be a busy offseason, not only in terms of upgrading personnel (first base), but also in taking a long look at why the Tigers have such ongoing trouble literally getting to first base.

If they view their players as being too entrenched in their free-swinging ways to change, then they clearly need different people in the lineup.

This is cache, read story here