Still a Market-Driven Economy

By midway through the season’s second week, the Detroit Tigers were being overrun again by the Deee-troit basketball Pistons and the Hockeytown, U.S.A., Red Wings, Comerica Park running at about one-third of its capacity since the home opener.

More people attended the Tigers’ early games last year, when few believed they would contend. Still, the Tigers won their first five -- then lost their next four, by which time Manager Jim Leyland might have remembered why he’d disappeared six years ago.

After starting 5-0 themselves, the Milwaukee Brewers gave up 21 runs over the next three games and lost them all before winning Thursday in St. Louis and heading to New York, so the big talk about small but rallying markets had become a bit more sensible. It’s about pitching, about depth, and about six months, all without the greenies, none of which plays to the budget-minded franchise.

“I think we’re making some strides where at least we feel like there’s some hope here,” Brewer General Manager Doug Melvin said. “We’ve turned over the roster over the last couple years, and now we’ve got a team I think we can grow with the fans.”

The ascension from baseball oppressed to baseball legitimate is harder than the Cleveland Indians made it look, easier than the Kansas City Royals make it look, and almost always a synthesis of blood, sweat, tears and dumb luck.

Two and a half years ago, for instance, the Tigers took a Rule 5 flier on a heavy-legged, redheaded, position-less 23-year-old who hadn’t homered in 122 double-A at-bats.

Thursday, Chris Shelton -- still heavy-legged and redheaded but affixed to first base -- hit his seventh home run of the season, and his 26th in 471 big league at-bats. Through the Tigers’ nine-game flow and ebb, Shelton batted a steady .514 and is the new face of the olde English D.

Dodger Vice President Roy Smith, an assistant GM with the Pittsburgh Pirates on the day of the 2003 Rule 5 draft, answered his cellphone on the occasion of Shelton’s sixth home run and said, “Yeah, I’ve been asked about him a lot lately.”

The Pirates lost five players in the first round of that draft, three of whom came back. But not Shelton, taken first overall.

General Manager Dave Littlefield had 38 players on the 40-man roster, saving two places for free agents he believed were needed to help the big league team. Had Pittsburgh protected two more draft-eligible minor leaguers and signed two or three free agents, Pirate management reasoned, it would have lost the prospects in the waiver process anyway.

“It was excruciating,” Smith said. “There was an awful lot of discussion on [Shelton].”

The Tigers had just lost 119 games. They would lose 90 in 2004, and 91 more in 2005. They’d fed upon the Pirates, who hadn’t had a winning season since 1992 -- and still haven’t.

It is the tussle between the unable and unwilling, where even the brightest baseball heads tire of the limitations that, mockingly, never end.

So enters Leyland, 61, picking up after Alan Trammell, rallying a franchise that hasn’t won a division title in nearly 20 years.

Those early wins in Kansas City and Texas might have made us all appreciate Leyland again, but as he almost certainly would agree, this probably won’t be about him. After all, six of his last seven teams had losing records, and, as a manager, he has lost 61 more games than he has won.

“To me, he legitimizes that organization, though I think Trammell was a good manager,” New York Yankee Manager Joe Torre said. “The first year [Trammell] was there, they misjudged the players and he had to wear that.”

That said, Torre added, “It tells the players you’re serious about something when you bring in a guy like Jim Leyland.”

Leyland has seen markets large and small, sometimes in the same cities (Pittsburgh and Miami); sometimes in his own head (Colorado). It was widely held that Leyland didn’t so much dislike Denver or the organization as he despised the players there, causing his departure after one season -- and 90 more losses.

“I think he missed it,” Torre said. “I think he burned out and then missed it.”

These Tigers seem a likable and capable enough group, though the good news through the first five games -- starters Kenny Rogers, Jeremy Bonderman, Nate Robertson, Mike Maroth and Justin Verlander all won -- tilted in the next four, as Rogers, Bonderman, Robertson and Verlander lost, and Maroth had to rest a sore left elbow.

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Contrary to expectations as baseball goes through steroid withdrawal, home runs are ahead of last season’s pace. Through Thursday, 359 homers had been hit, or 2.62 a game. Last season, there were 2.06.

Many scouts believe this is the result of pitchers returning to their natural fastballs and either becoming more hittable or, being less willing to throw strikes because of suddenly average velocity, pitching themselves into hitters’ counts.

Brewer ace Ben Sheets is expected to start today against the Mets, after recovering from a strained back. He is 2-0 in three starts at Shea Stadium. Days off allowed Manager Ned Yost to use only four starters through the first two weeks.

Chicago White Sox closer Bobby Jenks has four saves in four opportunities, but he’s lacked the overpowering stuff of last season and his ERA stands at 5.06.

Sticking with the trend of young pitchers in the closer’s role, and even young starters -- think Jon Papelbon in Boston -- in the ninth, White Sox Manager Ozzie Guillen is dropping hints that Brandon McCarthy could replace Jenks.

Simi Valley product and former Dodger and White Sox pitcher Scott Radinsky is a double-A pitching coach in the Indian organization. He also has big league connections: He and Guillen married sisters.