There are guys who hit home runs, and then there are home run hitters. For most of his superlative career, the Detroit Tigers' Miguel Cabrera has landed squarely in the second category.
He's a beast, a masher. A hitter opposing pitchers genuinely fear. A hitter you assume is going to launch one every time he takes a cut.
Like the cut he took Monday night against the Minnesota Twins. Facing right-hander Casey Fien in the top of the ninth with the Tigers up 7-6 following a Torii Hunter go-ahead home run, Cabrera added some insurance with an arcing liner over the left-center field wall.
The result? An 8-6 Detroit victory.
It's the kind of at-bat Tigers fans have come to expect from Cabrera. During a recent rough patch, though, those expectations weren't being met.
Between Aug. 3 and Aug. 31, a span of 27 games, Cabrera didn't hit a single home run. Overall, he managed just one blast in the entire month of August.
That's after he belted 44 home runs in each of the last two seasons, winning a Triple Crown and a pair of MVP trophies in the process.
Manager Brad Ausmus confirmed to MLB.com's Jason Beck that Cabrera has a bone spur in his right ankle, which could account at least partly for the fizzling pop.
As John Lowe of the Detroit Free Press put it:
In the first half of the season, Cabrera hit a lot of long drives that came down just short of the fence. The thought was that he was still recovering from his offseason core muscle repair surgery, and that in the second half he’d be strong enough that those long drives would start going over the fence. Instead, the opposite has happened.
Needless to say, anxiety was high in the Motor City. The Miggy worry meter was teetering between "elevated" and "freak out."
Then, just like that, the calendar flipped, and so did Cabrera's power switch.
He smacked a pair of home runs Sept. 1 in Cleveland. He repeated the feat Sept. 6 at home against the San Francisco Giants. In all, Cabrera hit five home runs in a seven-game stretch and has six in September.
The Tigers, not coincidentally, are winning. Detroit, 84-66, is 10-4 in September and has reclaimed first place in the American League Central, carrying a 1.5-game lead over the upstart Kansas City Royals into play Tuesday.
As they race toward October, the Tigers would like nothing more than a red-hot, long-ball-launching Cabrera leading the charge.
"What I did was fine," Cabrera told Brian Dulik of MLB.com after his Sept. 1 outburst against the Indians, which came as part of a 12-1 Detroit victory. "But we won, so that makes it even better."
Cabrera has been more than fine this season. Even with his August swoon, his .313 batting average, 23 home runs and 102 RBI put him at least on the edge of the American League MVP conversation.
But with his recent power surge, the Tigers must be thinking big things.
This is the team that made the deal of the deadline, netting ace left-hander David Price in a blockbuster three-team swap. The team that walked up to the doorstep of glory in 2006 and 2012, only to fall just short.
Cabrera is still noticeably hobbled. As he rounded third Monday following his back-to-back jack, he stepped gingerly, slowing to a shuffling jog.
And the Tigers still have question marks, including in the starting rotation, despite the Price trade.
But Cabrera returning to form, provided the ankle cooperates, could propel Detroit to the front of the AL playoff scramble. A locked-in recent Triple Crown winner can mask a lot of flaws.
Either way, it's got to be nice for the Tigers faithful to see Miggy being Miggy. And swinging like a bona fide home run hitter.
All statistics courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com.
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