Monday Morning Manager — Season’s (Almost) Over Edition

(my weekly take on the Tigers)

Last Week: 3-4
This Week: 9/29: at CWS

It’s funny how fast coaches get dumb.

Two years ago, Chuck Hernandez was hailed as being a major reason why the Tigers had a league-leading ERA of 3.84. He was instrumental, they said, in the development of rookies Justin Verlander and Joel Zumaya, and for the emergence of another rookie, Zach Miner.

Now Hernandez is a dummy. And he’s also out of a job.

Hernandez and bullpen coach Jeff Jones were the first two lambs sacrificed in the wake of this most disappointing Tigers season.

Several things contributed to Hernandez’s loss of pitching coach intelligence.

Injuries to: Jeremy Bonderman; Zumaya; Fernando Rodney; Todd Jones. Disappearing acts by: Nate Robertson; Dontrelle Willis; Verlander.

All those things, plus Kenny Rogers’ age catching up to him, and the regression against lefties by Bobby Seay, made Hernandez stupid. So throw him out and find someone smarter, I suppose.

I laugh when the name Leo Mazzone gets brought up.

Mazzone was the Atlanta Braves’ pitching coach for the glory years of the 1990s and into the 2000s. A veritable genius, that hackneyed sports word.

Hernandez: injuries, down years, and other implosions lowered his baseball IQ considerably

Mazzone was smart because he had the good fortune of having pitchers on his staff named Avery and Maddux and Smoltz and Glavine. And a reliever like Mike Stanton. And other competent pitchers — way more than most teams could ever dream of having. Yes sir, Leo Mazzone was smart — and lucky.

Then Mazzone was lured away from Atlanta to the Baltimore Orioles in time for the 2006 season. And by the time Leo got into Crabtown and looked around and didn’t see any future Hall of Famers on his staff, it was too late: Leo Mazzone got stupid in a hurry.

The pitching genius coached the O’s staff to an ERA of 5.35 in 2006. The next year he got a little smarter: 5.17.

Funny how talent will make a coach more brilliant.

So is Leo Mazzone a good pitching coach? Probably. To be fair, those big name guys gave him a lot of credit. But then again, what else are they going to say? “We did it despite Leo?” But is he great? Is he a genius? Can he make chicken salad out of chicken feathers? Can he bring results when his staff isn’t filled with superstars?

I’m not out to get Mazzone here. I’m just saying, that so many things are out of a coach’s hands.

Yet, this is a results-based business, professional sports is. And no one really cares, truthfully, what you were up against, if things go sideways.

The Tigers’ bullpen, amazingly, turned 13 seventh-inning or beyond leads into losses this season. Someone’s got to pay for such foolishness.

Funny, but I never heard how smart Hernandez was in regards to the surprising season turned in by Armando Galarraga. But one diamond in the rough wasn’t nearly enough to save the Tigers’ staff this year.

And it’s true that a coach can prove how smart he is best when the odds are against him.

It’s totally up to conjecture as to just how much influence a pitching coach or a hitting coach has on his charges’ performance. I’m sure they get way more credit than deserved, and the same with the blame. It’s the nature of the beast. And Chuck Hernandez and Jeff Jones know that.

You simply can’t have the pitching meltdowns that the Tigers had this season and expect that everyone is going to get off the hook. It doesn’t work that way, especially after a season in which many people thought the Tigers were going to be world’s champions.

In 1968, the Tigers’ pitching genius was Johnny Sain. Denny McLain won 31 games. The starters led the AL in complete games, and the staff was third in the league in ERA. Sain was hailed, and hailed loudly. Then, less than two years later, after a dispute with manager Mayo Smith, Sain got dumb and was fired.

One of the smarter ones being mentioned as a replacement for 2009 is Mark Wiley, who was the pitching coach for the great Indians teams of the mid-to-late 1990s. He was also Willis’s coach with the Marlins in 2005, when Dontrelle won 22 games and had an ERA of 2.63.

Wiley, or whomever is hired, will have the luxury of being smarter than his predecessor, for the time being. Until he gets dumb, sooner or later. Then it’s out with the dumb and in with the smart, once again.

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I have mixed emotions about today’s makeup game with the White Sox. I always want the Tigers to win, but in this case, a Tigers victory means the Minnesota Twins make the playoffs. And I absolutely HATE the Twins. So, best case scenario: Gary Sheffield hits his 500th home run — in a losing effort. And the Twins lose the playoff with the Chisox Tuesday, and all will be OK in my world.

Monday Morning Manager

(my weekly take on the Tigers)

Last Week: 1-5
This Week: (9/22-24: KC; 25-28: TB)

Well, it’s almost over. Finally.

The Tigers are sputtering to the finish line, wheezing. The end can’t come soon enough, it appears, for this bunch. What else do you call it when a 1-9 record in the last ten games is seen next to their name in the standings?

By the way, I seem to remember the “Last 10″ designation first appearing in newspaper standings sometime around 1984. Not sure how it started, nor why there was deemed a great interest in a team’s previous 10 games. But I must admit that the standings would look “naked” without a “Last 10″ column. And it truly is a neat way to see how the teams have been doing lately, at a glance. I notice that NHL and NBA standings are showing it now as a matter of procedure.

Now, let’s play over-and-under, hindsight version.

What do you suppose was the over/under on the Tigers’ win total for 2008? You could have made a mint if you had picked anything less than 95. Less than 80, and they would have had you committed. But the Tigers may not even win 75 games, which would have been off the books in March. You couldn’t have gotten any self-respecting bookie to even take you seriously with such a prediction.

How about this one? If you would have shown someone the Tigers’ schedule, and pointed to the four season-ending games with the Tampa Bay Rays, and said, “One of these teams will have sewn up a playoff spot by this time — and it won’t be the Tigers”, how long before the white coats would have arrived? And none of this backing in, Wild Card nonsense for the Rays. They are in as all baseball teams should be in — by winning their dadgum division.

Forget the stock market, pre-collapse. Your best bet at making money would have been in the bars and casinos and sports books across this country, wagering against the Tigers and their rosey outlook. You would have cleaned up.

It’s a shame, of course. These final seven home games could have really been something: teeming with playoff implications, or a nice warm-up to the post-season. Even a Battle of the Titans-like series with the Rays this weekend would have been a nice playoff preview. Instead, they’re like so many other September home games around here over the past 15 years, save the 2006 and 2007 seasons: meaningless and just something that needs to be done, like mowing the lawn or cleaning out the attic.

But there’s always next year, right?

Manager Jim Leyland promises, among other things, “no hanky-panky” in spring training ’09 when it comes to who’s playing which positions. Maybe someone should school the manager as to what “hanky panky” means, but whatever. Basically, he says that some disorder over positions — he mentioned Brandon Inge by name — last March contributed to the slow start this season.

I really don’t care what Jim Leyland thinks is the matter with his baseball team, as long as he fixes it. He says the Tigers aren’t far away from being “back in the thick of things” in 2009. He’s probably right. It’s hard to imagine so many bad things happening to the Tigers again next year. Correction: it’s nauseating to imagine that.

Well, at least next year we won’t have to hear about 110 wins and 1,000 runs and such. Let that be someone else’s albatross.

Monday Morning Manager

(my weekly take on the Tigers)

Last Week: 1-4
This Week: (9/15-17: at Tex; 19-21: at Cle)
Magic No. for a winning record: 4 (four losses and the Tigers will finish with a losing record for the 13th time in the last 15 years)

The above magic number is also the number of home runs Gary Sheffield needs for 500 in his illustrious career. Believe it or not, the Tigers, in their long history, have never had a player hit his 500th homer in a Bengals uniform. And since it’s still possible that Sheffield will not be a Tiger next season (there are few “untouchables” on the roster right now), if he doesn’t get #500 in the team’s final 14 games, then the Tigers will still not ever have a player hit no. 500 while playing for them.

Actually, it’s not all that ignominious of a distinction.

First off, only a few dozen players in MLB history have ever hit 500+ home runs to begin with. And the home run “era” didn’t really start until the 1930s or so. And players who initially hit 500 home runs did it for teams that they’d played most of their long career with. So right there, you’re eliminating quite a few scenarios.

Al Kaline is the Tigers’ all-time home run leader with 399. It’s been that way since Al retired in 1974. In fact, the Tigers have only had three players hit as many as 300 home runs for them. And as far as all-time HR sluggers who’ve spent most of their career elsewhere, i.e. Sheffield, the Tigers haven’t had too many of those guys, either. Eddie Mathews comes to mind. He played for the Tigers in 1967 and ’68, after he hit his 500th homer for the Braves. Other than that, until Sheffield this season, the Tigers haven’t really even come close to having someone hit home run no. 500 in a Detroit uniform.

It’s just one of those statistical oddities — one that may change soon.

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Speaking of Kaline, he could have been the first American Leaguer in MLB history to have both 400 home runs and 3,000 hits. But even though he got his 3,000th hit late in the ’74 season (his last), Kaline remained stuck on 399 home runs when he retired. He hit no. 399 in Boston on September 18 (according to Retrosheet.org), with 13 games left in the Tigers’ season. But 43 at-bats later, Kaline was shutout when it came to the longball. So it was Carl Yastrzemski, not Kaline, who got the distinction of being the AL’s first 400/3,000 man.

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The Tigers look like they’ll finish in 4th place this season, and there’s your ignominy right there. Fourth place out of five teams. And likely with a losing record. Wasn’t supposed to be like this, was it?

The Tigers can try to avoid that by sweeping the third-place Indians in Cleveland this weekend. So there’s your “big” September series!

Monday Morning Manager

(my weekly take on the Tigers)

Last Week: 3-4
This Week: 9/8-10: OAK; 9/12-14: at CWS

The push to .500 is on!

That’s this year’s Great September Race for the Tigers: whether they can manage the same number of wins as losses. The “magic number” is eight. Meaning, eight more losses and you can kiss .500 goodbye. The Tigers are 69-74 and have to go 12-7 the rest of the way to be mediocre. It shouldn’t be an impossible task, but the way things have gone post-All-Star break, you certainly can’t count on it.

Yesterday, the Tigers won consecutive games for the first time since August 22-23, according to the Free Press’s John Lowe. That’s over two weeks, folks, and that’s why the team never made any serious, late-season push to respectability, let alone playoff contention. It’s also why they may not even make the break-even point. Or finish any higher than fourth place. Fourth place! Could you have imagined such a thing?

I gotta hand it to the naysayers — the doomsdayers who said that, despite the Tigers’ off-season trades and signings, the team was still in a heap of trouble, due to the uncertainty over the pitching. Specifically, the bullpen. And that was before injuries to Joel Zumaya and Fernando Rodney and Jeremy Bonderman and the curious vanishing of Dontrelle Willis, and the not-as-curious slide of Nate Robertson, and the capitulation of Todd Jones as team closer. But those folks were right; we were too quick to expect 1,000 runs and 105 wins and a World Series, as if it was fait accompli. Because the pitching — and the DEFENSE — failed the Tigers miserably this season.

I didn’t really see the defense thing coming. The pitching, I was a little leery of myself. But the defense? It looked solid, if not great. I was expecting 20-25 errors at 3B for Miguel Cabrera, but wasn’t going to sweat it in light of his bat. But then Miggy couldn’t play third, and Carlos Guillen couldn’t play first, and Edgar Renteria couldn’t play short, and suddenly you had an infield in disarray. And that was in April.

Toss in all those four-out innings and all those blown saves, and, well, you’re right where you should be: struggling like mad to finish .500.

It’s still true, and always will be: pitching and defense wins. And, in the Tigers case, it also can lose for you, too.

Monday Morning Manager – Tuesday Version

(my weekly take on the Tigers)

Last Week: 2-4
This Week: (9/1: L to NYY; 9/2-4: LAA; 9/5-7 at Min)

I knew someone in the mainstream media would come around.

As already mentioned here, back when the Pudge Rodriguez trade occurred, the Free Press’s Michael Rosenberg wrote a column in this morning’s fish wrap discussing Rodriguez’s agenda when he signed with the Tigers in 2004. The timing was such because Pudge’s Yankees were in town for a makeup game, and it was his first appearance in Detroit as a member of the opposition since the trade on July 30 that sent him to New York.

I didn’t want to rain on the parade back on July 31 — even the normally sour Drew Sharp called for the retirement of Rodriguez’s jersey, of all things, for his decision to come to the Tigers on the heels of their 119-loss season of ’03 — but I also wanted you dear readers to remember the circumstances surrounding Pudge’s arrival some four-plus years ago.

Rosenberg painted Pudge as a money-grubbing opportunist, which pretty much describes at least 50% of today’s big league ballplayers. No real news there. But Rosenberg also dared to suggest that Pudge had zero interest in reviving baseball in Detroit — and that’s where even I won’t go.

For all his warts, I think Pudge wants to win. His intensity in the 2003 and 2006 post-seasons should prove that. His almost maniacal look of joy when Magglio Ordonez rounded third base after his pennant-clinching HR spoke volumes. The guy likes to win, because it puts him on center stage, where he revels. So I think for Rosenberg to totally dismiss Pudge’s desire to come here as being motivated 100% by money is a little disingenuous, and rough. And worse, wrong.

But I agree that Pudge Rodriguez didn’t ride in on a white horse like a knight in shining armor, if only because there were few suitors for his services — at his asking price — in 2004. Even coming off a World Series win. The Tigers were desperate and crazy enough to fork over the kind of dough that I-Rod was looking for, and no one else really was ready to do that, truth be told.

Yet to infer that bringing winning baseball back to Detroit wasn’t anywhere in Rodriguez’s plans is, for my money, off base.

As for the Tigers this week — the purpose of MMM, after all — what is there to say anymore, really? The mathematical elimination will be coming soon (the magic number to eliminate the Tigers is 15); the torrid Angels are in town, and the Tigers are reduced to playing spoiler. Trouble is, the only thing they’ve managed to spoil thus far is their own season.

Monday Morning Manager

(my weekly take on the Tigers)

Last Week: 4-2
This Week: (8/25-27: CLE; 8/29-31: KC)

The Tigers are loathe to admit it, but the team is pretty much in 2009 mode now. Even the announcers are saying as much.

Yesterday, during another come-from-ahead loss, TV guys Mario Impemba and Rod Allen were musing over what spring training, 2009 might entail.

Allen said, “There will definitely be some jobs up for grabs next year.” Both men agreed that 2008′s spring was devoid of much drama, because few spots on the team appeared to be unset. But no one could foresee Dontrelle Willis’s disappearing act, or Edgar Renteria’s slide, or Gary Sheffield’s MIA status in the season’s first half. Also not figured on were injuries to Joel Zumaya and Jeremy Bonderman, and the dethroning of Todd Jones as closer. Yet it all happened, and more, and so 2009′s spring certainly promises to be more unsettled, and more competitive.

Where, for example, might guys like Ryan Raburn and Matt Joyce fit in? Will Marcus Thames be traded in the media and on the Internet all winter? What does the future hold for Zumaya? Will Kenny Rogers retire? Who will the backup catcher be? Is Renteria toast?

Oh, and even manager Jim Leyland got into the act.

Yesterday, it was reported, Leyland and Sheffield had a discussion about 2009 — specifically, if it was mutually agreed that Sheff can be a productive player at age 40, which he turns in November. Not surprisingly, the consensus among the two men was a resounding yes. Maybe Sheff’s $14 million contract has something to do with that.

Regardless, with 32 games remaining and a 10-1/2 game playoff deficit, it’s appropriate to talk 2009, as painful as it may be.

As for 2008, the Indians come to town with a seven-game winning streak and just 1-1/2 games behind the Tigers. Last year, the Indians and Tigers were battling for first place at this time. Now they are staging a less-than-stimulating fight for third place. What a difference a year makes.

Monday Morning Manager

(my weekly take on the Tigers)

Last Week: 2-5
This Week: (8/18-20: at Tex; 22-24: at KC)

.500. The standard bearer for mediocrity. A winning percentage that basically says, “we win one, we lose one” — all season long. Nothing exciting. No real flirtation with any sort of playoff contention. You win 50% of the time, you lose 50% of the time. No team has won a division or gained a playoff spot with this comme ci, comme ca approach.

Legendary Tigers manager Sparky Anderson used to say that “you can’t do nothin’”, or words to that effect, until you cross the .500 threshold.

.500 is now the goal of the Tigers. It’s what they’ve been reduced to, in mid-August of a season in which .500 was to have been passed almost right out of the gate, only to be seen in the rearview mirror until October.

But the Tigers have only been over .500 for a handful of days this summer, and not more than three games over that standard of mediocrity. To say it’s been disappointing is to utter one of the great understatements of the decade.

The Tigers sit at 60-64. They must go 22-16 the rest of the way to at least say that they finished with a winning record. Yet there is little to indicate that they can manage such a clip of winning over the final 38 games. It’s been another miserable August, the third bad August in row for Jim Leyland in Detroit. A more angry, less delicate blogger could make the case that Leyland is a leader of choking teams — unable to get the job done when the chips are down. Maybe he, himself, is a choking manager. Some could say that. I might not even argue to strenuously against that notion, truth be told.

Before the season, had you known that the Cleveland Indians, half of last year’s ALCS matchup, would be wallowing, some 13 games below .500 on August 18, you’d have thought the Tigers would be running away with the division. As it is, the Tigers aren’t even running away with third place; the Tribe is but 3-1/2 games behind Detroit.

“You can’t do nothin’” till you cross .500. The Tigers barely did this season, and therefore, haven’t really done nothin’.

Monday Morning Manager

(my weekly take on the Tigers)

Last Week: 3-3
This Week: (8/11-14: TOR; 8/15-17: BAL)

First, it was Pudge Rodriguez. Now you can maybe add Gary Sheffield to the list.

The “list” is that of Hall of Fame-caliber players the Tigers will off-load before the 2009 season. Obviously, that list already includes Rodriguez, traded to the Yankees on July 30. But don’t be surprised if Sheffield is not a Tiger next season — and you certainly SHOULDN’T be surprised by that.

Sheffield, 39, has a contract that takes him through the 2009 season, and it pays a hefty $14 million. Not exactly an easy thing to get rid of, I know, but I look at his recently-published comments and it’s hard to see Sheff in Detroit in 2009.

To be blunt, as Sheffield himself always is, he hates being a DH. Hates it. “I don’t feel like a ballplayer,” he said, and he has said that, or something similar, many times before. Sheffield feels “complete” only when he’s wearing a glove and playing the outfield. It’s tough not to respect that attitude; but you do what you’re asked to do, at the same time.

Which brings me back to my original postulate: that Sheffield probably won’t be back in Detroit because, first of all, there really isn’t any room for him in the outfield. Sheff is a right fielder, by trade, and with Magglio Ordonez here, that’s out. In left field, the situation is murkier, because there are several candidates: Marcus Thames, Matt Joyce, Ryan Raburn, and Sheffield. And, frankly, left field was supposed to be mostly set, with the acquisition of Jacque Jones (remember him?).

There just isn’t room, unless you sit someone down or make him a DH and let Sheffield be a “complete” ballplayer. Still, it may not give Sheff the amount of work he craves in the field.

I can’t help but think back to my initial meeting with Sheffield, back at the beginning of the 2007 season. It was April, and Sheff sat down with me for about ten minutes. I asked him about his initial thoughts after hearing that he’d been traded to Detroit, in November ’06.

“I didn’t think it was a very good fit,” he said at the time. “My first thought was, ‘Where am I gonna play?’”

Sheffield looked at the Tigers outfield, saw how crowded it was, and it was a natural question to ask.

“But then after talking to Skip (manager Jim Leyland), I felt better [about being a DH],” Sheffield told me.

But now, apparently, Sheffield is having the same reservations about the situation in Detroit as he did almost two years ago.

Leyland isn’t normally a fan of players taking their beefs to the newspapers. But nor do I know how the recent quote from Sheffield about not wanting to be DH came about. Chances are, someone simply asked him. That’s pretty much all you have to do to get Gary Sheffield to tell you what’s on his mind. Regardless, Leyland would prefer that such feelings be kept within the confines of the clubhouse, and his office.

For that alone — Sheffield’s talking to the papers — Sheffield won’t be shipped out, of course. But it serves to underline the unhappiness with which he’ll play if he is asked to come back next season as a DH.

Then there’s the issue of his health — which he says isn’t a concern anymore. In fact, he had a warning for the pitchers in the AL.

“You had your fun with me when I was down,” Sheffield said of his time spent with a bum shoulder and other ailments. “Throw the ball down the middle now.”

Tough talk, and if he can back it up, then the Tigers will have something as they try like mad to stay in the divisional race.

But as for next season, I’d put the chances of Sheffield returning to the Tigers as somewhere less than 50%.

Ahh, but who will the Tigers fleece to take that monstrous contract off their hands?

Answer: no one — not the way I wrote the above question, anyway. The Tigers will almost certainly have to eat a portion of the contract to make any deal work. Few teams, if any, will agree to pay the entire $14 million for a 40-year-old player with diminishing outfield skills.

And it’ll be just another chapter in Sheffield’s mercurial career.

Monday Morning Manager – Tuesday Version

(my weekly take on the Tigers)

Last Week: 2-5
This Week: (8/5-7: at CWS; 8/8-10: OAK)

If a team’s playoff chances are ever decided in the first week of August, then that scenario has dawned on the Tigers.

They are 7 games out of first place. They’ve lost three in a row, and seven of ten. They are no longer the hottest thing in the American League. And they are about to have the dirt tossed on them, pending what happens this week — starting tonight in Chicago.

You hate to say that a team HAS to sweep another, but in this case, the Tigers pretty much must win all three in Chicago. They are 6-1/2 behind the White Sox, and a sweep gets them to within 3-1/2 and even if that doesn’t get them much closer to the first place Twins, it at least gets them much closer to one of the two teams they must leapfrog in order to win the division. The Tigers aren’t going to win the Wild Card, most likely. There are too many teams in front of them. Their playoff hopes rest with the Central Division crown. And it’s time to make a move — and now.

It can’t just stop with the White Sox series, of course. The A’s come to town this weekend and the Tigers, who had used strong Comerica Park play to get themselves back onto the fringes of contention, have stumbled at home lately. There can be no losing two of three anymore — much less being swept, as the Tigers were in Tampa. Just about every series must be won. Two of three — even three of four — must be won from here on out. That’s the bed the Tigers have made and must now sleep in.

But it’s the same old story — the one we’ve all been reading (and writing) about for weeks — months, even: forget such a blistering finishing run with the bullpen constantly throwing gas on the fire. The Tigers, as a result, are being cooked before our very eyes.

As I’ve said, Fernando Rodney is not the answer as far as closing games. He throws too many pitches, mainly because of his wildness. It reminds me of a line once said about a young Sandy Koufax, written by a scout: “Koufax would be a great pitcher, if the plate was high and outside.” So even if Rodney does get the save, often he’s unavailable the next day because of his high pitch count.

Kyle Farnsworth, it looks like, will get the next try — his meltdown in Tampa notwithstanding. Farnsworth has closed before, and he has the stuff to do it again. Whether he’ll be successful, of course, is another question.

And you can’t have Todd Jones to kick around, because Jonesy is on the DL. Don’t be surprised if he’s thrown his last pitch as a Tiger.

The Tigers will have to slug their way into the playoffs, if they’re going to get in. They’ll have to go on pace for that 1,000-run season that everyone was predicting back in March. It’s their only hope, I fear.

Monday Morning Manager

(my weekly take on the Tigers)

Last Week: 4-2
This Week: (7/28-31: at Cle; 8/1-3: at TB)

Todd Jones was a closer for another time — a time when you bit on bullets to deal with pain, and they used mustard plasters for everything from headaches to internal diseases. A time when sports trainers taped an aspirin to your damaged knee and told you to get back out there.

Jones closing a ballgame was often tantamount to having that “little procedure” in the doctor’s office without the benefits of anesthesia, local or otherwise. He was the Tilt-a-Whirl, on turbo, right after you had a big lunch.

That’s what you get when your closer “pitches to contact” and lacks a true strikeout pitch. And what you get when he allows opposing hitters to ding him successfully to the tune of a .375 clip, as the statisticians say has occurred in Jones’s last 11 outings.

Todd Jones is a great guy. He’s a great Tiger. He would appear to bleed Tiger blue and orange. But a closer cannot, CANNOT, have hits rained on him at a .375 pace. It’s just not acceptable. It’s not playing with fire — it’s venturing into a blazing building with a gasoline suit on.

The news that Jones is being replaced — and we don’t know if it’s permanently or not — as team closer by Fernando Rodney has been, I know, well-received by the Tigers faithful. Doesn’t take much of an observer to figure THAT out. The gut-wrenching loss to the White Sox on Friday night, in which Jones was one strike away from bringing the Tigers to within 4-1/2 games of first place, only to end up serving a game-winning homer to Jermaine Dye, was the last straw for manager Jim Leyland. That loss hurt as much as any other in recent years, and Jones was sacrificed. There was a little bit of Donnie Moore and Ralph Branca in that loss, as over-the-top as that may seem. Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory in that manner — hell, not the jaws of victory but the esophagus of victory — was as bad as it gets, at least for a late-July game.

But that horrific moment on Friday night wasn’t just a hiccup. No little blip on the screen. It was the culmination of a month-long’s worth of shakiness, even when the saves were being recorded and credited to Jones. Shakiness that a team fighting for its playoff contention life simply cannot afford.

Leyland’s job is to give the Tigers their best chance to win. He has said that despite all the money and guaranteed contracts, the manager’s trump card is, and always will be, the lineup card. Or, in this case, the bullpen management. You use the players who give you the best chance to win. And Leyland has correctly deduced that Todd Jones does not, at this time, give him that.

“I’m 40 years old,” Jones said in the wake of the news of his de-frocking, and the inference is clear: that he’s old enough to know that he works in a results-oriented business. And when the results are not there, then changes are made. Good guy or not.

But then there was this, when Jones was asked if he saw the move to de-frock him coming.

“Not at all,” was his reply.

Hmmm.

Chalk it up to that “can’t see the forest for the trees” thing. Although, maybe Jones didn’t see it coming because Leyland has always stuck with him, despite the anesthesia-less moments spent watching Jones close ballgames. Jones had no reason to feel his job was in jeopardy, because Leyland has never pulled him from the role, despite those all-too anxious moments. Why should this current 11-game slump be any different?

But every man has his threshold for pain, I suppose, and Leyland has reached his. Clearly, the manager has a higher tolerance than his team’s fan base.

As fate would have it, Jones may be called upon to close tonight’s game in Cleveland, due to Rodney’s 42-pitch effort yesterday, and Joel Zumaya’s bad tricep. It’s like breaking up with your girlfriend, then asking her out a day later because you’re in a jam and need a date.

As Richard Nixon once said, when he was threatening to get out of politics back in the day, “You won’t have Todd Jones to kick around anymore.”

With the exception of maybe tonight. For old time’s sake.