Did Scott Harris and Tigers ask themselves the wrong question?

Scott Harris tossed and turned, trying to come up with an answer. But maybe he was asking himself the wrong question. After watching his team crater last September and eventually crash out in Game 5 of the ALDS for the second year in a row, Harris was grappling with this: "How does a top-eight offense for five months become a bottom-eight offense in September?"

"That's the question that really keeps me up at night," he said. "And is that a blip on the radar or is that predictive of the future? We have to get to the bottom of that question."

The Tigers decided that it was a blip, bringing back the same group of hitters other than promoting top prospect Kevin McGonigle. Their bet on internal growth looked like it might pay off earlier this season; now it looks like it might blow up in their face. The reality, as usual, lies somewhere in the middle, but Harris and the Tigers invited this regression by viewing last year's offense through rosy lenses.

By runs scored, the Tigers had a top-five offense last season through June. They dropped to 18th in July, and ranked 17th in August. Their slide was already underway when they tumbled to 24th in September. It's all a matter of perspective, and arbitrary cutoff points. While it's true that the Tigers' offense ranked eighth in the majors through the first five months of last season, it's also true that it ranked 21st over the final three months.

The picture that Harris and the Tigers painted of their offense, at least publicly, was colored mostly in the first half of last season. So maybe "the more pressing and fundamental question," to borrow Harris' words from his end-of-season presser, would have been: were we the top-10 offense of the first half or the bottom-10 offense of the second? By following different logic, the Tigers might have arrived at a different answer.

And they might have done more in the offseason to change it.

The Tigers have lost 12 of 14. They have averaged 2.5 runs per game during this stretch, while falling 7.5 games behind the Guardians. They were smothered Monday night by Cleveland's Slade Cecconi, who entered the game with an era of 5.60. They rank 25th in the majors in runs scored. More damningly, over their last 162 games, dating back to May of 2025, they rank 23rd. By the simplest and most important measure of scoring runs, the Tigers have had a bottom-10 offense for a calendar year.

"I just feel like we're not stringing it together," Dillon Dingler said after Monday night's loss. "Good teams -- and we are one -- string together good at-bats and have big innings and pass the baton, hit after hit, and push runs across. I just feel like we're not doing that right now."

Dingler represents the inherent risk in the Tigers' plan. Young hitters are volatile. Over the first few weeks of the season, Dingler was one of the hottest bats in baseball. Now he's one of the coldest, hitting .196 with an OPS of .615 since a four-hit day at Fenway a month ago. He finished an 0-for-5 in the Tigers' 4-3 loss Tuesday night by striking out with two men on to end the game.

Speaking of volatility, McGonigle is hitting .213 with an OPS of .553 in May after looking unstoppable out of the gate. That the offense hasn't survived the inevitable come-down of a 21-year-old rookie is not ... the 21-year-old rookie's fault.

Spencer Torkelson homered Tuesday night for the first time in two weeks, but has looked so lost for most of the season that A.J. Hinch pinch-hit for him with lefty Colt Keith in a key spot against a righty in the eighth.

Keith grounded out; among hitters with at least 140 plate appearances this season, Keith is last in the majors with six RBI. His power has evaporated. Hinch's constant platooning is turning a supposed building block into a bit piece on a bad team. The Tigers locked Keith up for up to nine years before he'd played a game in the bigs because they believed he's a complete hitter, yet he has 10 plate appearances this year against lefties.

Injuries are a culprit here, too. It would be unfair to ignore that. The Tigers clearly miss Gleyber Torres' right-handed bat at the top of the order; their slide began when he strained his oblique earlier this month. They similarly struggled when he played through a sports hernia at the end of last season.

The absences of Javy Baez and more recently Kerry Carpenter help explain all the at-bats for guys like Wenceel Pérez, Hao-Yu Lee and Zack Short, three of six starters in Tuesday night's lineup whose OPS is in the .600s or lower. But neither Baez nor Carpenter was doing much when healthy. The return of Matt Vierling this season hasn't offset yet another long-term absence for Parker Meadows.

Might the Tigers have benefited from adding a veteran this offseason like Luis Arraez, the three-time batting champ who signed a cheap one-year deal with the Giants and touts an average of .320? Arraez, of course, was seeking an everyday job and the Tigers have cluttered their lineup with a lot of part-time players.

Harris and the Tigers like to tout their four All-Star hitters from last year. Two of them, Baez and Zach McKinstry, have regressed as their recent track records suggested they would. The Tigers counted on internal development to lift their offense, and their only hitter who's clearly developed from last year -- through nearly a third of the season -- is Riley Greene. Full marks to Greene, who leads the majors in on-base percentage, for making real growth in the box. The addition of McGonigle is an internal win, too.

But where is everyone else? And why was one of the best hitters in baseball batting fifth Tuesday night, watching from the on-deck circle as Jahmai Jones and Dingler struck out to end the game? Hinch loves to hunt matchups, and the Guardians had started a lefty. But especially at a time like this, shouldn't Greene be getting as many at-bats as possible?

After the Tigers went quietly Monday night, Hinch was asked if he's worried about frustrating setting in for his hitters. "If we’re just getting frustrated now," he said, "then we’re late."

"Where we’re at, we’re going to have to stay together, work together and really dig ourselves out of this one step at a time. But I worried about frustration a long time ago," Hinch said. "This has been a grind for a lot of these guys. You're right: their track records are not matching what we’re getting, and that’s always tough, but it’s back to the drawing board, back to the work. Find a different way to be a positive influence tomorrow, come get your good work in and find a way to have success.

"But I know these guys are battling and they’re grinding, and I know a lot of people are giving up on them. We’re not gonna give up on each other."

No, the season isn't lost. There were signs of life Tuesday night, in the frustrating form of several stranded runners. This offense isn't as bad as it's been recently, just like it wasn't as good as it looked in the first half of last season. But it feels like the Tigers took the latter to be true. If better health doesn't fix the offense in the months ahead, it might not correct itself. It's quite possible that it already has.