If A.J. Hinch had his way, Miguel Cabrera would have hit two homers Thursday afternoon in Detroit and sent everyone home happy. The Tigers would have hit the road without having to wonder where and when Cabrera will make history. And Hinch would have left behind questions about sitting a Hall of Fame hitter in the name of a feel-good moment.
But Cabrera went 0-4, the Miggy Milestones tracker remained stuck at 498 homers, and now the pursuit of 500 continues Friday night in Cleveland -- where Cabrera hit a pair of bombs in a three-game series in June. Cabrera will be in the lineup Friday and he'll be in the lineup Saturday, with a day off scheduled for Sunday afternoon. Hinch has no interest in sitting a player who's hitting .300 since June with an .862 OPS since the All-Star break.
"I've been about trying to win every game, so that would be very inconsistent with how we've approached the whole season and unfair to the rest of the group," Hinch said Thursday. "I understand the hope, and I even think Miggy deep down inside hopes this happens (at home). But we're in Cleveland this weekend, a place where we haven't played particularly well. We go to Baltimore next week where we feel like we're a better team than them. I don't think we would concede a loss or a lesser lineup for the sake of trying to time it up. The baseball gods just don't let you do stuff like that. If it happens, it's supposed to happen."
Hinch did say he's planning to give Cabrera another day off in the series finale against Baltimore ahead of a six-game homestand.
"That's kind of my hat tip to like, 'OK, we'll have four games on the road before we come back home,'" he said.
And maybe that's what it takes to invite history at Comerica Park. Excluding a pair of two-homer games, Cabrera has gone deep twice in a four-game span just two times this season. As well as he's hitting of late, it remains unlikely he reaches 500 on the road. Then again, Miggy's probably licking his chops: the cozy confines of Camden Yards have yielded the most home runs in baseball this year, and Progressive Field in Cleveland has yielded the 10th most.
We'll see how it all shakes out. Hinch wouldn't mind coming home with Cabrera sitting on 499. He'd rather come home with history in the rearview and a few more wins in the bag.
"Man, I don't want to lose a close game in Baltimore with Miggy on the bench and us not taking advantage of an opportunity, because I literally have preached this since the beginning of spring training: we're trying to win every game," he said. "It's too inconsistent as a message for me as a manager to play games that way."
