Miguel Cabrera appears to just be happy he’s rich as he seems to be coasting on the field this season. He has played in 69 games for the Tigers this year and he is 73 for 257 (.284 avg, .828 OPS) with 34 runs scored, 10 homers and 42 RBIs. Cabrera also has been pretty bad on defense at both 3B and 1B this season. If Cabrera starts to get motivated he can carry the Tigers’ offense by himself but he has to want it. After all, Cabrera has a career .310 batting average and a .920 OPS which are pretty darn impressive numbers. Basically, he needs to get his act together now because the Tigers aren’t out of the American League Central race yet.

Jacque Jones, Marcus Thames, Gary Sheffied and Placido Polanco are all below the Mendoza Line right now. Polanco has been bothered by a bad back so far this season and that might explain some of his problems. But if it’s bothering him as much as it appears that it is he needs to shut it down for a while because he’s hurting the team right now. Polanco has played in 14 games this season and he is 8 for 54 (.148 avg, .469 OPS) with 4 runs scored and 4 RBIs. Gary Sheffield has been complaining about his shoulder again and that could be why he is slumping right now. He has played in 15 games for the Tigers this season and he is 10 for 52 (.192 avg, .672 OPS) with 6 runs scored, 1 homer, 2 RBIs and 2 stolen bases. Jacque Jones and Marcus Thames were supposed to be a powerful platoon in left field but that hasn’t been the case so far this season. They are a combined 13 for 70 (.186 avg) with 8 runs scored, 1 homer and 6 RBIs. The Tigers need all of these guys to play up to their abilities or they might have trouble scoring runs and I never thought that could be possible with this lineup.

Craig Monroe has been pretty bad all season long and he’s in danger of losing atbats to Marcus Thames.  Monroe is only hitting .223 with 40 runs scored, 9 homers and 44 RBIs in 273 atbats.  He also has whiffed 76 times this season which isn’t acceptable given Monroe’s performance so far this season.  Thames is only hitting .244 this season but he has scored 20 runs, ripped 10 homers and driven in 28 runs in only 131 atbats this season.

Marcus Thames is having a hard time so far of following up his excellent 2006 season.  In 20 games, Thames is 10 for 54 (.185 avg, .661 OPS) with 9 runs, 3 homers and 8 RBIs.  Thames has also whiffed an amazing 21 times already this season.  Part of Thames problem is that he’s not getting a lot of playing time so it’s been hard for him to stay sharp.  Don’t look for his playing time to increase unless the Tigers’ suffer an injury.

Sean Casey has played in 19 games so far this season and he’s only 11 for 64 (.175 avg, .457 OPS) with 2 runs scored and 1 RBI.  If he doesn’t get it going soon for the Tigers they may have to either play Marcus Thames more at firstbase or call up Chris Shelton.  Hopefully Casey will just start hitting because he’s a much better defender than either Shelton or Thames would be at first base.