Baltimore
The Tigers had just taken a “punch to the gut,” getting swept at home by the Texas Rangers after Bobby Wilson, the backup catcher they traded five days earlier, hit a grand slam to beat them for their sixth straight loss.
The heat on Ausmus’ seat was turned up yet again. It has been hot since late last season, one in which the team finished last in its division. The seat got hotter in late April, when the Tigers were swept by the Cleveland Indians at home, then simmered when the Tigers started playing like they should be playing.
But now, after the Tigers’ 11th loss in the past 12 games coming against the Baltimore Orioles on Saturday night, the seat is hotter than it has ever been before.
A Dartmouth College graduate, Ausmus spoke in generalities about the shelf life as a major league manager (they are hired to be fired) and realities (25 players cannot be fired, but one manager can), and he spoke candidly about the fact that he would likely be the fall man if the expensive cruise ship he was hired to steer could not avoid the iceberg straight ahead.
“I understand that when you have a payroll like ours, the manager’s the guy that’s in the cross hairs,” he said. “That’s fine. I knew when I took this job that I probably was gonna end up getting fired before I walked away from it. Not this job in particular but just managing in general. How many managers walk away from a job?”
Not many. Ausmus, with the help of a handful of reporters, came to that conclusion earlier this week inside the manager’s office at Nationals Park in Washington, when the topic of the hot seat came up once again.
And since the day he spoke of being in the cross hairs, the Tigers are 1-5. They are stuck in a snowbank, their wheels spinning, going nowhere fast, and it is mid-May, the snow long melted away.
Their performance over the past week, with Ausmus’ seat on fire, has been a garbage blaze. They appear to be taking the field down a run or two, waiting patiently for something, anything, to go their way, and on the rare occasion it does, the bullpen comes in and nothing goes its way. The Tigers simply aren’t playing inspired baseball.
Something is wrong inside the $200 million clubhouse that owner Mike Ilitch finances and general manager Al Avila fancied over the offseason.
Asked earlier in the week what the vibe is in there, one player said, “You feel it.”
And it feels like a losing team, like whatever swagger the Tigers had built up over their four straight American League Central championship seasons in 2011-14 has been swept away, a distant memory.
On paper, this team is good. The Tigers have immense baseball talent, a lot of veteran leadership, a few up-and-coming youngsters. But games aren’t won on paper, and on the field, they have lacked a fire in their play as of late, at a time when they surely know their manager is in the crosshairs, perhaps another lengthy losing streak away from losing his job.
“Of course, you hear stuff,” catcher James McCann said after Saturday’s 9-3 loss to the Baltimore Orioles. The Tigers led, then they coughed up that lead, then they folded.
“The manager’s not the one there that plays,” he said. “It’s the players. The manager’s not the one out there throwing balls over the plate, not the one fielding, and he’s not the one hitting. There’s only so much blame you can throw in that direction.”
Avila deserves a lion’s share of the blame: Thus far, most of his offseason additions have been flops. Justin Upton’s batting average is just .208. Pitchers Mike Pelfrey and Mark Lowe cannot get outs. Francisco Rodriguez cannot be counted on to be a lock-down closer any longer.
Perhaps with time — there are still 127 games left in the regular season — they will prove to be positives in the long haul. But Ausmus’ managing shelf life, without a contract next year and with exorbitant expectations, was always short. And because of those early-season flops came the ripple effect of losses that leads to the third-year manager’s chair, which won’t be cooled with anything less than a World Series title, what with the team’s paying customers having their pitchforks firmly raised, charging Ausmus’ way.
And at six games under .500 and 8½ games back in the division, the Tigers do not deserve to be included in the same sentence as a World Series title, which has been Ilitch’s elusive goal for many a year.
“It’s a performance-based industry,” is one of Ausmus’ go-to sayings.
And the Tigers are not performing.