The Brandon Inge blues

Inge was on the team when they lost 119 games in 2003, and was there for the World Series in 2006. Last year, he was voted onto the All-Star team, where, sadly, he hit 0 home runs in the Home Run Derby.

Since I’ve been back working in Detroit for the last month, I’ve been to two Tigers games. Inge didn’t play the first one, in June against Cleveland, but he was back off the DL for the game last Tuesday against the A’s. The Tigers won, but it was a terrible game for Inge. He went 0 for 4 at bat, sending his batting average even lower in the 100s, and missed a fielding play. The boo birds were merciless.

Apparently while I was away from Detroit sports radio, Inge became a lightning rod for Tigers fans. No matter that he’s by all accounts a great guy who does charity work with sick kids, no matter that we all have memories of him diving into the stands to field a foul ball, no matter that he’s gamely played third base, catcher, left field, center field and right field for manager Jim Leyland, no matter that last year he hit .247 with 70 RBI. This year his performance has been miserable.

Ok, it’s business, I understand. The team is paying him $5.5 million a year, and he needs to be worth it. Leyland and General Manager Dave Dombrowski are under pressure to win the division, if not capture the pennant, and there’s no room for sentiment in the back half of the year.

For his part, Inge took the demotion rather than take a chance getting picked up by another team. “But this is home, and this is my team. I need to go down and work this out, but I’ll be back,” he told the San Francisco Chronicle last week. “I’ll be back in September no matter what. That’s a definite.”

Whether you see that as a promise or a threat, it shows Inge’s heart and loyalty.