Mow Down Is Expected in Motown

LAKELAND, Fla., March 3 -- They post absurd comments, all of them well intended, on Curtis Granderson's blog. They yell outlandish comments during batting practice. They approach him on the streets, at the mall, out at dinner. He can see it in their dreamy eyes -- wait, wait . . . here it comes. "'Man, that lineup is crazy!' " says Granderson, reciting some of his favorite lines. "Or, 'Man, y'all are gonna score 1,000 runs.' Or, 'We're getting to the World Series this year, baby!' "

It's not as if Granderson and his Detroit Tigers teammates dislike the comments. It's great to hear fans so fired up, and to see 2008 season tickets flying off the shelves, and to read the national media picking them to win the American League Central division -- if not the AL pennant, or even the World Series.

But hold on a minute, folks.

"We haven't won a [meaningful] game yet, and if I'm not mistaken the Boston Red Sox are the defending champs, with a team that's almost all back. And the Cleveland Indians are the Central champs, with a team that's almost all back," Granderson said. "The fans are optimistic, and the city of Detroit is pumped. That's what they're supposed to do. But we have a lot of work to do before we can start making those things come true."

Most teams arrive at spring training talking up their chances for the upcoming season, the better to get fans excited and the ticket sales rolling. But the Tigers are finding themselves needing to do the opposite, simply to avoid drowning themselves in overblown expectations -- which were a natural byproduct of the blockbuster offseason trade that brought them third baseman Miguel Cabrera and left-hander Dontrelle Willis from the Florida Marlins.

"We read pretty good right now. The papers read pretty good right now about our 'Murderer's Row,' " said Tigers Manager Jim Leyland, snuffing out the hype like the Marlboros he chain-smokes in his office off the Tigers' clubhouse. "This has a chance to be a real good team. Will it be? I don't know. I like to talk about my team after a season, not before -- then I can tell you if it was a special team."

The Tigers' assets are unquestioned -- a lineup so deep and potent, Cabrera, arguably the best under-25 hitter on the planet, will bat fifth, and catcher Iv¿n Rodr¿guez, a 14-time all-star, will bat eighth; a rotation, headed by fireballer Justin Verlander, that goes five deep with pitchers who have won 13 or more games in a season within the past three years; and a manager, Leyland, who is considered the premier strategist and motivator in the game.

"It's a great lineup, a great pitching staff, a great manager," Rodr¿guez said Monday. "But we still have to do it."

What the Tigers are not, however, is perfect. And they know it. Their rotation, while accomplished, is full of question marks -- Jeremy Bonderman's elbow, Kenny Rogers's age (43), Willis's mysterious drop-off in performance with Florida last season -- and their bullpen is a mess, with top setup men Joel Zumaya (out until midseason with a shoulder injury) and Fernando Rodney (still dealing with a tender elbow that plagued him last year) both ailing.

And there is a touchy situation developing with veteran Brandon Inge, who lost his third base job when the Tigers acquired Cabrera, and who has made it clear he does not want to return to catching, which he last did in 2004. The Tigers would like to trade him, but haven't found a satisfactory offer, and in the meantime they will experiment with other positions -- including a planned start in center field on Wednesday.

"I'm not going to force somebody to catch who doesn't want to catch," Leyland said. "I want him to play third base somewhere every day."

Still, those issues seem like minor nuisances to a franchise that only five years ago lost 119 games and that posted 12 consecutive losing seasons between 1994 and 2005. Since bottoming out in 2003, the Tigers have restocked their farm system -- producing homegrown stars such as Verlander and Granderson, but also providing the depth to pull off the Cabrera/Willis trade -- while slowly spending big money on sluggers like Rodr¿guez (signed in 2004), Magglio Ord¿¿ez (signed, 2005) and Gary Sheffield (trade, 2006).

The December trade for Cabrera and Willis, which materialized almost out of thin air during the winter meetings and went from idea to consummation within 48 hours, was the perfect finishing touch, bringing them a fearsome slugger who averaged 32 homers and 115 RBI in his first four full seasons, and a young lefty who averaged 14 wins and 205 innings pitched in his first five seasons.

"Miguel is going to be huge," Willis said. "I don't want to say he's going to blow up -- because his numbers in Florida were awesome -- but I think you're going to see some great things out of him."

As for his own transition to a new, tougher league, coming off his trying 2007 season (10-15, 5.17 ERA) in Florida, Willis simply shrugs. "Maybe I should start being more dramatic about [the struggles last year], but I'm really not worried about it," he said. "The fans are going to see how hard I work, and the way I play the game. I think they're going to enjoy coming and watching me, whether it's a good game or a bad game."

Within the Tigers' clubhouse, see, there exists the theoretical possibility of an occasional bad game. Outside, on the streets of Detroit, among the fans and the fanatics -- perhaps not so much.