It took 13 seasons for Ivan Rodriguez to play in a World Series. He cherished not only the clinching victory at Yankee Stadium, when he rushed to the mound to kiss Josh Beckett, but every step along the way with the Florida Marlins.
“The big moment was every inning, every pitch, every at-bat . . . everything,” Rodriguez said Wednesday. “Being able to play in the World Series, being on the winning team, it was very nice.”
Rodriguez doesn’t want it to be a once-in-a-lifetime experience.
He understands some questioned his motivations when he signed with the only team to offer him a four-year contract this winter. But he believes those people don’t understand how quickly things can change for the Detroit Tigers.
“Nobody was talking about [Florida] winning a World Series last spring,” Rodriguez said. “They had lost [83] games the year before and then won 91 games and the Series. These guys lost [119] games last year, but that doesn’t mean we can’t win the Series. . . . Last year is over.”
Nobody is happier about that than manager Alan Trammell and the players along for one of baseball’s bumpiest rides. The Tigers started 1-17 and had to win five of their last six games to avoid joining the 1962 New York Mets with 120 losses.
Left-hander Mike Maroth lost 21 games, rookie Jeremy Bonderman lost 19, the team batted .240 and averaged only 3.6 runs per game. It finished 47 games behind Minnesota in the American League Central.
And it could have been worse.
Having lost 10 games in a row, the Tigers took a 38-117 record into the last week of the season. They dropped the first game of a three-game series at Kansas City but won their last two there before coming home to Comerica Park, where they took three of four against Minnesota.
On the next-to-last day of their endless season, they rallied from an 8-0 deficit to beat the Twins 9-8. Never before had a team with so many losses had such a good reason to celebrate.
“That was huge,” Trammell said of the Tigers’ finish. “Nobody, except the ’62 Mets, can ever compare to what we went through. Who can, except for them? We endured a lot of negatives in many different areas. It would have been so easy to give up, quit. To win five of six, how we did it, I don’t know. . . . It was a great feeling, to be honest.”
General manager Dave Dombrowski, who inherited a desk drawer full of awful contracts from predecessor Randy Smith, had put Trammell in such a bad position when he released veterans Damion Easley, Randall Simon and Juan Acevedo. He exacerbated it when he opted to give the 20-year-old Bonderman and young middle infielders Ramon Santiago and Omar Infante a trial by fire.
“Probably the least thing I did last year was manage games,” said Trammell, who played shortstop for Detroit’s championship team in 1984. “I’m looking forward to doing that more this year. There’s not much of a chance to manage when you fall behind so many games early, but I’m looking forward to this year.”
With owner Mike Ilitch increasing the payroll from $45 million to about $55 million (including $6.6 million paid out to Easley), Dombrowski imported veteran position players to provide immediate credibility to a lineup that already included promising newcomers Alex Sanchez and Craig Monroe.
While the $40 million commitment to Rodriguez was especially well received in Detroit, spurring $1 million in ticket sales over a three-day period, the seeds for a turnaround may have been sewn earlier.
Dombrowski rebuilt the middle infield by signing free agent second baseman Fernando Vina and trading for Seattle shortstop Carlos Guillen. He signed free agent outfielder Rondell White and right-hander Jason Johnson, whom Baltimore non-tendered after a 10-10 season.
Johnson joins Maroth, Bonderman and Nate Cornejo in a starting rotation that currently lists only one vacancy. The bullpen is more of a work in progress, however, as no one in camp earned more than five saves in 2003.
“I think the hitting on this team is going to be fine,” Rodriguez said. “What we need to do is get the pitching staff together and we’ll be fine. That’s my job.”
Rodriguez, 32, admits he signed with Detroit because it was the only club offering him the four-year deal he was seeking. He says he had one- or two-year offers from the Cubs, Los Angeles, Seattle and Baltimore.
Handling a staff hasn’t been considered among the strengths for Rodriguez, who appears headed to the Hall of Fame on the strength of 10 Gold Glove awards and .304 career batting average. He took charge of the young staff in Florida, helping Beckett and Brand Penny turn a corner.
“There are some great arms here,” Rodriguez said. “There are guys who can pitch, who can be as good as Josh, as good as Brad Penny. We have to keep working with them, and they’ll be better.”
Baltimore started 0-21 en route to a 54-107 season in 1988. It improved 33 games the following season, going 87-75 to finish only two games behind Toronto in one of the most unlikely division races.
Can the Tigers make that big of a leap? They need only a 76-win season to match those Blue Jays in improvement.
“Hopefully, we can get off to a good start and our confidence keeps building,” said White, the former Cub who split last season between San Diego and Kansas City. “We have to look at it like we won 100 games [last year], not lost 100 games. It’s all in your mind. I think we’re going to surprise a lot of people.”
There’s nowhere to go but up.
