Leyland trying to get lineup in sync

05/29/2008 8:20 PM ET
Leyland trying to get lineup in sync
More tinkering could be on tap as manager looks for answers
By Jason Beck / MLB.com

ANAHEIM -- Jim Leyland wondered on Wednesday whether he's pushing the right buttons. He left Angel Stadium after Wednesday's win thinking about which ones he has left to push.

"I have a lot of work to do on the plane," Leyland said.

He had a round of golf slated for Thursday's off-day in Seattle, but his mind was likely to be on well more than his short game.

The Tigers had just roughed up eight-game winner Joe Saunders and cruised to a relatively easy 6-2 victory on Wednesday night, but Leyland was already thinking past that. As impressive as Detroit looked against the left-handed starter, that hasn't been its problem. It's all those games against right-handers, against whom they hit 44 points lower, that have frustrated the Tigers' offense.

Offense, however, is just the half of it. After back-to-back walk-off losses, everything seemed to work well together for the Tigers on Wednesday. They had a 3-0 lead by the time Armando Galarraga took the mound. They had solid defensive play from center fielder Curtis Granderson, making a rare start against a lefty, and Brandon Inge, starting at third in place of injured Carlos Guillen. The defense helped Galarraga work into an early groove and stay in it.

The skid-ending victory took just two hours, 35 minutes -- the Tigers' first road win all season under 2:48. Leyland's challenge afterwards was how to carry that over to the weekend and beyond.

"We've got a lot of issues we've got to try to figure out -- I've got to try to figure out -- to get this club going a little bit on a consistent basis," Leyland said. "And that's one thing we haven't had."

It's not that Leyland hasn't tried. The Tigers shook up the team a few weeks ago by releasing Jacque Jones, calling up Matt Joyce and swapping Miguel Cabrera and Carlos Guillen at the infield corners. Leyland tried playing Gary Sheffield in left to get his bat going, an experiment that ended a week and a half later.

"We've had to deal with a lot of fooling around that you don't normally like to do," Leyland said. "But that's the way it is."

The latest changes came on Wednesday, when Leyland announced that he'll play Granderson against all but the toughest left-handed starters and give Marcus Thames a shot to play regularly in left. The team sent Joyce back to Triple-A Toledo and recalled Clete Thomas to add some more speed and energy and to give Joyce a chance to play every day in the Minors. With Sheffield on the disabled list, Jeff Larish will start in all three games against the Mariners.

"We've had to tinker around so much because of different situations," Leyland continued. "I worked on it [on Tuesday] night for hours, to be honest with you. How can I piece this thing? How can I work everything together to get the club in sync? Because we just haven't been in sync. I think that's partly the reason why we haven't been a success."

The way Leyland sounded after Wednesday's game, it might not be the last of the tinkering.

"The flow of our team is not very good," he said. "I'm going to try to come up with something to get that going a little bit."

How much he can still do remains to be seen, and he didn't have answers right then. Watching what went right Wednesday was the closest to an idea.Inge's play at third over the last couple nights was a reminder of how much his defense at the hot corner adds to a game, though Guillen's two errors at third on Monday came with him hampered by injury. Thames' two homers Wednesday raise the question about whether power or contact works best in the third spot ahead of cleanup man Magglio Ordonez, one of the Tigers' few consistent hitters thus far. The Mariners, however, will send out three right-handed starters this weekend.

Then there's the matter of where to bat Larish, whose left-handed power bat could balance the lineup but who has never hit in the big leagues before. He'll most likely bat lower in the order, Leyland indicated, but it's hard to tell.

How juggled has Detroit's lineup been? The Tigers have used at least six different players in every spot in the order except for the fourth and fifth spots, where Ordonez and Miguel Cabrera have been anchored. Through 53 games, Leyland has used only one batting order more than three times this season, and -- of course -- that was the standard lineup against left-handers.

That doesn't even include the pitching side, where starter-turned-reliever Dontrelle Willis hasn't pitched since an inning of work on May 23.

"It's tough. Our pieces aren't quite in sync," Leyland said. "We have nice pieces, but we have two pieces for the same spot."

The tougher part for Leyland is that nothing has worked well enough to give his team a consistent scoring attack. It's frustrating enough that when Leyland talked about accountability before Wednesday's win, he also talked about himself.

"I feel terrible right now," he said. "I feel like I'm disappointing Mr. Ilitch, disappointing Dave [Dombrowski]. I feel terrible. I love this team. They're a great bunch. It's just our combinations do not look very good right now. We're looking to get it straightened out here shortly somewhat, but you can't score 19 runs in a game and then go three games and score three. That just doesn't get it done.

"I'm disappointed in myself. I just haven't pressed the right buttons or something. This is the way it is. They brought me here to do a job. I don't feel like I'm doing a very good job right now. I don't hide from it."

He just keeps on trying. Even after the win, he was trying.

"Don't ask me what I'm going to do or how I'm going to do it," he said, "but I'm going to try to figure it all out."

As he talked with reporters after Wednesday's game, lamenting the lack of flow, his cell phone rang.

"Maybe that's somebody telling me what to do," he joked.

Jason Beck is a reporter for MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.

Go Leyland!