Da Meathook Speaks

Bulletin board material from the Motor City:

Bold prediction? Detroit Tigers first baseman Dmitri Young won't see the Twins until Tuesday's series opener at the Metrodome. But after Detroit finished its series with the Indians on Sunday, Young has apparently seen enough to make some predictions about the outcome of AL Central.

"This is our rival right here," Young said of Cleveland. "Forget the other teams. I think it's going to come down to us and them. Just look at the different positions, look at the matchups. The matchups are pretty similar."

The Twins have won the last three division titles and are many experts' pick to take a fourth-straight championship. When a reporter asked him about Minnesota, Young shrugged.

"Us and Cleveland," he said. mlb.com

Granted, the Tigers have the best run differential in the Central after the first week. In fact, they're the only AL Central team with a positive run differential to this point. But... a) it's only one week, b) the Tiggers are 3-3 just like three other teams in the division this morning, and c) this is mighty talk from someone who's been playing in Detroit the last few seasons.

Dmitri, in the three seasons since you signed with Detroit in 2002, your team is 15-41 against the team which has won the Central division in each of those years. You might want to learn to crawl before letting your mouth run off like that.

Shades of Bobby Higginson in April 2001, when he complained after dropping five games to Minnesota in the first week that a team on the rise like his club shouldn't be losing to teams like the Twins.

I hope Torii Hunter gets wind of these comments. This could be a very interesting Tigers/Twins series starting Tuesday--and we haven't seen much of that since April 2001, have we?

Thank you, Meat!