The Detroit Tigers and The Self-Fulfilling Prophecy Of 2009

"Like I said at the beginning of the season, this division won't be decided until the very end." - Jim Leyland

If you set out to underachieve, chances are, you will. Jim Leyland is a manager of a team that has a chance to win the AL Central Division with two games left to go in the season.

They are one game up on their divisional rivals, the Minnesota Twins. This is a far cry from the team's respective positions at the beginning of September.

Tigers fans are understandably worried and on the pessimistic side of things. The Tigers have played nothing short of awful baseball in the month of September to get to this position. Just one month ago, they had a decisive seven-game lead on the Twins and the division was all but theirs.

Let's go back to March now. The Tigers had just come off a 2008 season in which they finished in last place, after such high preseason expectations.

The expectations for 2009 then, were diminished. Back in March, Detroit looked like a team that might hover around .500 and miss the playoffs by about 10 games.

Now they hold the unique and undesirable position of a team overachieving and underachieving at the same time.

The fanbase is divided. Some think Jim Leyland should be a nominee for coach of the year for even getting the Tigers in a position to win the division.

Others think he should be fired for squandering a seven-game lead with one month to go.

No team in Major League Baseball history that has been in first place on or before May 10 has ever lost a division in the final week.

Detroit could be that team unless something happens in the next two days.

On the first day of the last weekend of the regular season, the Tigers were blown out 10-0 against the Chicago White Sox, a team long out of the running for postseason contention.

You can say a lot of things about that, mainly that the White Sox were hungrier than the Tigers, a team playing for their postseason lives.

Minnesota meanwhile, is cruising 10-0 against Kansas City in the fifth inning, as of this writing.

The two teams couldn't be further apart.

At this point the division is now completely up for grabs. Detroit's magic number remains two, with two games left to go.

One Tigers win combined with a Minnesota loss, wins the division for Detroit. But what if Minnesota wins its next two games? What if Detroit only wins one of its last two?

That would set up a one-game playoff at the Metrodome. The final game at the Metrodome up to that point. A game Minnesota would be heavily favored in.

That all but makes the final two games of the season must-win games for Detroit.

Jim Leyland predicted this would happen at various points this season, but did it really have to happen? Or did the team just make this a self-fulfilling prophecy?

Should Jim Leyland win manager of the year? Or be fired? Or should he just fade into the background?

It was a moment of Detroit Lions-like stupidity when Jim Leyland was inexplicably signed to a two-year contract not even halfway through the season.

This of course was after Leyland was issued an ultimatum before the season started. Get this team to the playoffs, or find another team to coach.

The contract should have been contingent on a postseason berth, but owner Mike Illitch and GM Dave Dombroski uncharacteristically jumped the gun.

Jim Leyland will not be fired, even if the Tigers complete their self-destruction and lose the division on the final day of the season.

This of course, also happened in 2006. Three years ago the situation was nearly identical. Detroit held a respectable lead in the division, only to lose it to Minnesota...on the final day of the season.

Of course, in 2006 Detroit's record was good enough to earn them a wild-card berth.

That obviously will not happen this year. The results may end up the same as 2006, but minus the wild-card safety net. That belongs to Boston.

Two games. These last two games, are arguably more important than a first-round playoff series.

Getting swept by the New York Yankees wouldn't be a huge shock. It would be disappointing, it would hurt.

But how much would it hurt to lose the division on the last day of the season? After leading the division for five months?

It would be worse than getting swept by New York. Easily.

The Tigers are sitting between overachieving and underachievement. They are in baseball limbo.

Can two games really determine whether a manager wins a manager of the year award or gets fired?

We're about to find out.