Tigers' Leyland puts feet up - but not for long

By JIM LITKE
AP Sports Columnist

Jim Leyland deserved better. After five months of nerve-racking stops and starts, the closest thing he got to a break was the chance to prop his stockinged feet on the desk of his office in Detroit for a few minutes.

After a 5-3 win Sunday over the visiting White Sox, his Tigers had clawed their way up to, but not quite across the finish line in the AL Central. So Leyland kept checking a TV in the corner to find out whether the next step in the journey would carry him to Minnesota and-or New York.

In the meantime, he was getting his kicks watching someone else squirm for once — in this case Twins manager Ron Gardenhire in the sixth inning of a game in Minneapolis, as the Royals pulled to within 8-4.

“C’mon,” Leyland yelled at the screen, “keep going!”

But then Minnesota reliever Jon Rauch escaped a bases-loaded jam by striking out Kansas City’s Billy Butler. Soon enough, the Twins wrapped up a 13-4 win, and even though that meant Leyland and the Tigers were headed for a Tuesday night winner-take-all, regular-season finale in front of 50,000-plus hankie-waving fans at the Metrodome, this is probably what he was thinking: “Damn Yankees.”

And why not?

As if the top talent and the fattest wallet weren’t advantages enough, those same Yankees find themselves in the enviable position of opening the postseason at home against a worn-out opponent on a night of their choosing. Because New York had the American League’s best record, the Yankees can opt to begin their series against the AL Central survivor on Wednesday or Thursday night.

Better still, they don’t have to inform the Tigers-Twins winner until an hour after the game in Minneapolis ends.

“I assume they would choose Wednesday,” Leyland said glumly.

Either way, more suspense is the last thing Leyland needs, especially at the end of a season during which his team grabbed the division lead in early May and despite its best efforts, never quite let go. Detroit’s projected starting rotation was never together again after leaving spring training, its offense never produced consistently all season and the two players the Tigers traded for to bail them out — Aubrey Huff and Jared Washburn — were never a factor.

To make things even more exciting, they nearly blew a seven-game lead over the fast-closing Twins with less than a month to go. A family of four could probably live a year on what Leyland spent on cigarettes just in September.

“Have we been perfect?” he said, without waiting for a reply. “No. Do you wish you would’ve had it wrapped right now? Do you think you should’ve? Yes.

“But when you also think that people were picking you fourth in the division in the winter and spring and after 162 games, you’re tied for first place,” he added, “that’s not bad.”

Except it’s worse than that. High-priced star Miguel Cabrera showed up Sunday with a bruised and cut left cheek that nobody in the organization was willing to discuss. After both Cabrera and general manager Dave Dombrowski refused requests for comment before the game, Leyland barked at reporters, “If you want to talk about the game, we’ll talk about the game. If you don’t want to, you can excuse yourself.”

The problem, of course, won’t go away that easily, not with an open day on the schedule for the other shoe to drop. If Leyland didn’t feel like even the schedule was conspiring against him before, he must now. First, the Twins wind up playing the hapless Royals on the must-win final weekend. Then both Detroit and Minnesota have to take an extra day off because Monday Night Football’s latest revenge extravaganza — Vikings quarterback Brett Favre squaring off against his former team, the Green Bay Packers — has the Metrodome locked up.

As it is, Leyland had to burn his best pitcher, Justin Verlander, to extend the Tigers season Sunday, and he’ll have to use his second-best, rookie Rick Porcello, to have any shot of playing beyond Tuesday. The most hopeful thing he can muster is recalling how the Tigers backed into the postseason in 2006, then beat the Yankees on their way to the AL pennant.

“It’s still in our own hands,” Leyland said, brightening at the memory. “I’m sure most people won’t give us much chance going up there, but we’ll see.”

Jim Litke is a national sports columnist for The Associated Press. Write to him at jlitke(at)ap.org