2006 Detroit Tigers season
| 2006 Detroit Tigers | |
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| American League Champions | |
| Major League affiliations | |
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| Other information | |
| Owner(s) | Mike Ilitch |
| General manager(s) | Dave Dombrowski |
| Manager(s) | Jim Leyland |
| Local television |
FSN Detroit WDWB (Mario Impemba, Rod Allen) |
| Local radio |
The Detroit Tigers Radio Network (Jim Price, Dan Dickerson) |
| < Previous season Next season > | |
The 2006 Detroit Tigers won the American League Pennant. They represented the AL in the World Series before falling to the St. Louis Cardinals 4 games to 1. The season was their 106th since they entered the AL in 1901. It was their 7th season since opening Comerica Park in 2000.
The Detroit Tigers were baseball's surprise success story of 2006. After years of futility, including an AL-record 119 losses in 2003, the 2006 season had the Tigers surging to the top of the major league standings in May, a position they did not relinquish until the final day of the season. The play of veterans like Kenny Rogers and Todd Jones, the emergence of previously unestablished players Curtis Granderson, Brandon Inge, Craig Monroe and Marcus Thames, and significant production from erstwhile All-Stars Iván Rodríguez, Magglio Ordóñez and Carlos Guillén all contributed to the team's success.
A great deal of credit was also given to manager Jim Leyland. On April 17, after an uninspiring 10-2 loss at home to the Cleveland Indians dropped the team's record to 7-6, the manager launched into a tirade against the team about its lack of effort, telling the media, "We stunk. They [the players] were already on the plane to Oakland." It appeared to light a fire under the players, spurring them on to a stretch in which they won 28 of 35 games. Leyland repeatedly preached the concept of playing hard for nine full innings, and the players took up that mantra, as evidenced not just by their words but also by the team's propensity for late-inning clutch hits, rallies and comebacks.
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