This spring, surely the only way Detroit envisioned outfielder Matt Joyce and first baseman Jeff Larish fitting into its 2008 plans was maybe if the Tigers needed someone to help pick up the champagne corks from the clubhouse floor come September and October.

Yet here the Tigers are, still sputtering a third of the way through their schedule, and they have been dependent on two call-ups from Triple-A Toledo to supply ... instant power? Wasn't this the lineup that was supposed to blow every pitcher in its path to smithereens?

Marcus Thames rewarded the Tigers with a two-HR night Wednesday in Anaheim. (AP)

Joyce, who joined the club in early May, had five of Detroit's last 17 homers before being dispatched back to Toledo. His playing time was curtailed because manager Jim Leyland wants to see what Marcus Thames can do with regular playing time in left field. That experiment got off to a rousing start when Thames walloped two two-run homers in Detroit's 6-2 win over the Angels on Wednesday night.

Larish, recalled Wednesday when Gary Sheffield went on the disabled list, slammed 16 homers and collected 43 RBI in 53 games for the Mud Hens. Detroit's fifth-round pick in the 2005 draft, Larish, a 25-year-old left-handed hitter, is expected to be in the lineup Friday night in Seattle and serve -- for now -- as the primary designated hitter against right-handed pitchers.

Not exactly what you would expect from a club predicted to flirt with 1,000 runs behind sluggers Magglio Ordonez, Miguel Cabrera, Ivan Rodriguez, Carlos Guillen and Sheffield.

"No," Leyland says. "You get injuries, you've got to have replacements.

"I like them," he said of Joyce and Larish. "It's an opportunity for them."

But, as the manager is quick to say, there are no tricks here.

Which is why, as he sat up thinking in his Southern California hotel room following another loss the other night, he decided the companion move with Thames would be to leave Curtis Granderson in the leadoff spot against lefty pitchers for the foreseeable future, too.

"I'm not looking for this to turn us around (immediately)," Leyland says. "I'm not looking to win 30 in a row. I love Curtis Granderson to death. He's a hell of a player. He's going to be a great player.

"I can't hide from the fact that he's going to have to be our catalyst."

The more he tinkers, the more, it seems, Leyland keeps coming back to the obvious: For this lineup to work, Granderson and Placido Polanco must get on base, and Ordonez, Cabrera, Rodriguez, Guillen, Sheffield (when he comes back) and even Brandon Inge must knock them in. Period.

"They don't do it, we're screwed," Leyland says.

Forget John McCain -- this is the real Straight Talk Express.

"We've had so many changes and different things happen to us, it boggles the mind," Leyland says. "We just have no flow. Absolutely no flow. But a lot of that is dictated by hitting. If we're hitting, we'd say we have good flow."

• On top of everything else, Detroit third baseman Guillen has a very severe case of hemorrhoids. Which led to this Leyland quip about time off for Guillen: "I'm going to stand him for two days." Surely, sitting Guillen for two days while waiting for his hemorrhoids to calm down would be a worse fate than playing him.

• The trainers are telling Leyland everything is good, Granderson says he's good to go, and so he's in the lineup. But his molasses-slow start (.241, .305 on-base percentage, 25 whiffs in 116 at-bats) is making the manager wonder if Granderson's right hand really is completely healed after he broke a bone in March and started the season on the disabled list.

"I'm just suspicious," Leyland says. "One thing about it, for better or for worse, these guys are troopers. They really are. Guillen playing the other night. I question whether (Granderson) is 100 percent. The hand is a very delicate thing. You've got to have your hands to hit."

Granderson returned from the disabled list just over a month ago, on April 23.

• Maybe manager Willie Randolph keeps his job, maybe he doesn't. But one rival NL manager sizes Randolph's club up this way: "Carlos Beltran and David Wright have to get going and pick them up. Those are the two most important players on that team."

• Whatever way he tries to spin it, Hall of Famer Gary Carter was way out of line in openly discussing his interest in the Mets' managing job. So he didn't actually use the word "campaigning," which, in his world, means he wasn't campaigning for Randolph's job. Whatever, it was tacky and classless and Carter, ever the self-promoter, needs to be taught a few things about etiquette.

• Joba to the rescue? The Yankees' Joba Chamberlain made way for closer Mariano Rivera in the ninth after throwing 28 pitches in relief during Wednesday's 4-2 win over Baltimore. Then he marched out to the bullpen and threw 27 more pitches as Rivera was finishing off the O's.

Joe Girardi's staff is working hard to stretch out Chamberlain in preparation for his debut in the rotation -- which could come Monday in Minnesota or Tuesday in New York. With Ian Kennedy on the DL, Chamberlain's transition has been put on rush.

• Emotional times in the AL Central this week: White Sox shortstop Orlando Cabrera was scolded by manager Ozzie Guillen for phoning the press box twice in recent days to complain about official scoring decisions, and Cabrera and Guillen had to work out a few things after the shortstop said the manager didn't have his back.

Meantime, Twins closer Joe Nathan was clearly chapped when right fielder Delmon Young misplayed a Mark Teahen fly ball into an inside-the-park homer Tuesday night, snapping Nathan's streak of converting 21 consecutive save opportunities. And these are the two clubs leading the division.

• Four of Washington's projected eight position players are on the disabled list, and 10 players from the Nationals' opening day roster have spent time on the DL. But within that, rookie catcher Jesus Flores and reliever Jon Rauch have been finds. Rauch, the 6-foot-11 veteran now closing for the injured Chad Cordero, collected his 11th save Wednesday night.

• Flores, plucked from the Mets as a Rule 5 pick before the 2007 season, has impressed the Nationals both at the plate and behind it. He walloped his first career grand slam Wednesday night in San Diego and was hitting .391 (9-for-23) with four doubles and seven RBI over his past six games -- and he's at .344 for the season.

"Very impressive," Nationals manager Manny Acta says. "This kid was in A-ball two years ago. He's got that aura around him, like he belongs. You can count on one hand the number of times this guy has been overmatched. And he's very good at calling a game."

The Nats still talk about his two-out, game-winning homer against Arizona and then-closer Jose Valverde last season.

• It's still cruise control time for the Los Angeles Angels of Got Some Good Pitching. They've maintained a steady two-game lead over Oakland in the AL West despite ranking 10th in the league in on-base percentage at midweek. Nine quality starts in their past 11 outings -- until Joe Saunders was off Wednesday night against Detroit -- will cover some flaws. And Ervin Santana remains outstanding. Of 113 pitches against Detroit on Tuesday, 80 were strikes. But they have scored more than four runs in just six of 26 games in the month of May, and they are hitting just .158 with runners in scoring position over their past nine games.

• Maybe it's all that smog in Southern California. The Dodgers right now can't hit in the clutch, either: 6-for-56 with runners in scoring position during a six-game stretch through midweek. Jeff Kent is battling back spasms and Nomar Garciaparra remains only a figment of some folks' imaginations. He's perennially on the disabled list.

• The Blake DeWitt story continues to flourish. The Dodgers' surprise opening day third baseman is handling himself so well that Andy LaRoche, one-time third baseman of the future and currently returning from thumb surgery, is playing some first base (instead of third) at Triple-A Las Vegas.

• How about these home/road splits: Boston (21-5 at home through midweek, 11-19 on the road) and Atlanta (22-7, 6-18).

• Rome wasn't built in a day, and neither is John Smoltz: The Braves might have as weak a bench as there is in the NL East, but Atlanta is hoping to get a boost next week. Smoltz is on track for an injury-rehab outing Thursday night for Class A Rome (Ga.), and the plan after that is for him to make another appearance for Rome on Saturday. All of that goes well, Atlanta and newly extended manager Bobby Cox are hoping to activate Smoltz next week.

• So, which is worse, Brandon Inge: The Tigers' 119-loss summer of 2003, or the current malaise in which the team has been bitterly disappointing and Inge, still not traded, is a utilityman?

"From a team standpoint, this is not even close to 119. We're still a very good team. We were a young team back then. If we won a game, that was a bonus. For me personally, this is the most frustrating year I've had by far. There's nothing I can do. My hands are tied. I want to play every day, and that ain't happening. At least, it ain't happening now."

• Much of Detroit is clamoring for Inge to play, especially with the infield butchery, but the fact of the matter is, he's only hitting .223 with a .315 on-base percentage. And he has struck out in 32 of his 112 at-bats. What it looks like is that Inge isn't doing enough to earn more playing time, though in his eyes, it becomes a chicken-and-egg thing.

"I get an at-bat once a week, take a week off ... it's hard to hit like that," he says. "I'm not worried. I have 20 RBI (19, actually). I look at how many RBIs you have, and how many runs you score."

• I'm not one to tell folks how to spend their money, and Lord knows that by the time you buy a ticket, park, purchase a ridiculously overpriced beer and other concession items, a working man or woman might have difficulty making ends meet.

But Tampa Bay woke up Thursday tied with the Chicago Cubs for the best record in the majors. The Rays are off to their best start in history. They've got an exciting, young team. And the announced crowd for Wednesday's game against Texas was 10,927? And the first two games of the series drew gatherings of 12,174 and 10,511? And the Rays rank last in the AL with an average of 17,938 fans per game? Maybe the problem isn't only the wretched ballpark. Maybe there's going to come a point in time where baseball is going to have to examine whether the area is capable of major-league support.

• Yes, that was Cubs workhorse Carlos Zambrano throwing 130 pitches Wednesday night against the Dodgers. That total matched a major league high this season. Same number of pitches Boston's Jon Lester threw in tossing his no-hitter May 19.

• Kansas City apparently is still having nightmares about Lester's no-no: The Royals haven't won since, losing their 10th straight Wednesday in a particularly ugly way, blowing a five-run lead in the ninth. And did you see Jose Guillen's comments afterward?

"Too many babies in here," Guillen fumed to reporters. "They don't know how to play the game and how to win games. That's the problem here. Now I know why this organization has been losing for awhile. Now I know. It doesn't have anything to do with our manager. He cares more than anyone."

Royals skipper Trey Hillman chose not to attempt to avoid the train wreck with closer Joakim Soria because he had thrown 31 pitches the night before.

• Excellent start to Cecil Cooper's managing career in Houston. The new skipper's latest move: When Wandy Rodriguez returned from the DL Wednesday, Cooper decided to leave veteran Brian Moehler in the rotation and bump Chris Sampson. Moehler, in four starts, is 2-1 with a 3.43 ERA. Sampson is 3-3 with a 6.04 ERA.

Plus, give Cooper props for honesty when he told Astros reporters, in describing Moehler, that "when you've got your fourth or fifth guy, all you want them to do is keep you in the ballgame, and that's what he's done." None of this "Whoever is starting tonight is our No. 1 starter" nonsense."

• Hard-to-believe stat of the week: Integral as he is to the lineup, until last Saturday, Pittsburgh's Jason Bay never had a game-ending hit in his big league career. Bay's game winner in the 14th against the Cubs was his first walk-off hit. It took him 412 RBI before finally getting it ... then, as so often happens in this quirky game, he got another walk-off single Sunday.

• Word is quickly getting around that Cleveland setup man Rafael Betancourt is reluctant to throw on the inside part of the plate, and hitters are figuring it out.

• Pennants aren't won in April? Maybe not, but sometimes they can be (remember Detroit's 35-5 start in 1984) and if things don't perk up in the lagging NL West, maybe the Diamondbacks' April will hold up. They are 8-12 over their past 20 games and, during that stretch, they have actually added a half-game to their division lead. The second-place Dodgers are 7-12 during the D-Backs' slump, Colorado and San Francisco each are 8-12 and San Diego is 8-13.

• How bad are the Padres? Washington's Odalis Perez underwent an emergency root canal Wednesday morning, then still made his start that night and held the Padres to three runs in 6 1/3 innings. Yes, he got the well-earned win.

• Two all-beef patties, special sauce ... and no A: Albert Pujols hammered a home run so hard in batting practice the other day in Busch Stadium that it knocked out the "A" in the "Big Mac Land" in the second deck in left field. Sounds like material for a sequel to The Natural, no?