Paquette says he likes and respects Trammell, whose operation he says is much more structured than that of interim Luis Pujols last year. But, asked if he wanted out, Paquette said, “In a heartbeat. And they know that. I thought something was going to happen at the end of the spring, but it got shot down.”

As I said, I don’t know what the performance record of someone who had successfully pitched to the score would look like. I am certain, though, that for a pitcher to build his Hall of Fame case on the notion that he did such a thing, he couldn’t have put his team behind in nearly two-thirds of his career starts, and he couldn’t have blown leads once a month throughout his career.

Wednesday night, Bonderman shut down the A’s with eight brilliant innings and this line: 8 IP, 3 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 0 BB, 5 K. He threw in the 90’s with a dominating curveball and when Matt Anderson escaped the ninth, the Tigers had their second win of the season, 4-1. “It was a tremendous feeling,” Bonderman said. “It was especially meaningful because the first call I got in the clubhouse was from Billy Beane, who congratulated me and told me how proud he is to have had me in the organization.”

That said, what I didn’t discover until later is that the Tigers, who lost 106 games last season, were significantly worse than their terrible record. Given their runs scored (575) and allowed (864), we’d have expected the Tigers rack up 112 losses rather than 106. And if you’re trying to predict this year going off last year, you’ll do better if you consider the 2002 Tigers a 112-loss team. And is it really such a stretch to assume that a team with three Rule 5 pitchers and a starting rotation completely populated by question marks might lose eight more games than it did a year ago?

Speaking of (John) Santana, one AL scout said Wilfredo Ledezma, the lefty taken by the Tigers in the Rule V draft from Boston, “is the next Santana. His stuff is really something.” Boston had only 28 players on its 40-man roster when Ledezma was left unprotected.

Manager Alan Trammell and president and general manager Dave Dombrowski can’t completely remake this team three weeks into the season. It’s not possible.
But they have to realize that 1-16 is ridiculous. Something has to be done. Something significant has to be done.

Francona alludes to how Trammell remains the upbeat realist, the same as when he played. Trammell makes no attempt to downplay the Tigers’ record or that they’ve embarked on a new rebuilding project in his first year as manager. But, as when he played, he prepares for every game thoroughly, expecting success.

Bonderman struck out five and walked none. With his fastball humming and his slider breaking sharply, Bonderman retired 17 straight from the second inning until Terrence Long tripled with one out in the eighth. Long scored on a groundout.

You don’t contract Hoot Evers, Schoolboy Rowe, Dizzy Trout or Mark (the Bird) Fidrych. You don’t wipe out a town where Marvin Gaye, Brenda Holloway and Kim Weston cut their Motown hits not terribly far from the wonderful old ballpark at Michigan and Trumbull. Ridicule them now, as you must, but they will be back. It’s in the blood.

The more we survey baseball people about the Tigers, the more we wonder if they’ll even win 50 games.

One AL scout’s evaluation: “They’ve got a chance to threaten the ’62 Mets (40-120). They really do. They can’t catch the ball. They don’t hit. They’ve got a couple of pitchers who are OK. But their kids have no energy and their veterans provide no leadership. They’re in worse shape than Tampa Bay because at least Tampa Bay has the best manager in the league. Lou can only do so much over there, but at least they’re all afraid not to play their tails off.”