While some of us are throughly looking forward to this afternoon’s Jeremy Bonderman/Randy Johnson matchup, Tigers manager Jim Leyland has a new angle from which to grumble : Detroit’s getting too much respect!
From the Detroit Free Press’ Mark Snyder.
“We were a token stop in spring training,” a clearly agitated Leyland said before Sunday’s game. “Now all of the sudden these experts, they knew about (Justin) Verlander, they knew about (Joel) Zumaya (above). They knew about (nothing). They didn’t know (anything), if you want to know the truth. All of the sudden they’re on the bandwagon. That’s the way it goes, but I’m not going to fall for it.”
His biggest problem is that it’s only May, and people are trying to project the Tigers’ current pace into a full season.
“I look forward to my job, but you can see it all being set up,” Leyland said. “Nobody is going to keep up the pace we’ve played. So if we lose a couple games, they’ll say, ‘Oh, it was the Yankees.’ It doesn’t matter who we’re going to play. At some point, this pace is not going to keep up.”