5 things to watch: Can Detroit Tigers avoid cellar? will Miguel Cabrera win batting title?

DETROIT -- Here are five things to watch this week regarding the Detroit Tigers:

Can the Tigers avoid finishing in last place in the Central Division?
When the Tigers wrapped up their four-game series with the Chicago White Sox last week, they trailed the White Sox by just a half-game in the division standings. After the Tigers dropped two of three this weekend to the Twins, that same half-game gap remained. Will the Tigers play well enough during a season-ending six-game road trip to avoid finishing in last place in the division for the first time since 2008, when they finished with just 74 victories? It could very well come down to a (likely) season-ending three-game series in Chicago between the Tigers and White Sox. The White Sox are off Monday, so the Tigers could pull into a fourth-place tie with them with a win over the Texas Rangers.

Will outfielder J.D. Martinez hit 40 home runs, knock in 100 runs?
Martinez has 37 home runs and 98 RBIs with six games remaining. (It could be seven games if the Tigers are forced to make up their recently rained-out game in Cleveland.) Those are career highs for Martinez, who hit 23 and drove in 76 runs for the Tigers last season. Can Martinez get hot on the road and hit enough home runs to reach the 40-home run plateau? Will he reach 100 RBIs? Globe Life Park in Arlington and U.S. Cellular Field are certainly hitter friendly enough for Martinez, who has power to all fields like few other players in the majors.

Will Miguel Cabrera win the American League batting title?
Cabrera has been slumping at the plate a bit and has missed a few games for various reasons. But he has 498 plate appearances, which leaves him one short of qualifying for the batting title if the Tigers play 161 games and three short if they play 162. He clearly will get enough plate appearances. But will he hit well enough to hold off guys like Xander Bogaerts, Jose Altuve and Michael Brantley? Cabrera is hitting .337. Bogaerts is second at .324. Cabrera has some breathing room. If he went 0 for 18 from this point forward, he would finish at .323.

How will the bullpen fare during the final week of the season?The Tigers recently sent closer Bruce Rondon home due to a lack of effort. They have been very careful about using Alex Wilson based on his heavy workload this season. Buck Farmer only just recently came off the disabled list. The Tigers certainly have plenty of bodies in the bullpen, thanks to expanded rosters in September. But it has been a long season for a bullpen that has had a rough go of it. Will the Tigers try to limit anyone else's workload during the final road trip of the season?

Will Justin Verlander and Daniel Norris finish strong?
Verlander has been pitching very well for some time and has given the Tigers and their fans hope that he could be the ace of the staff again in 2016. Norris has pitched extremely well in two outings since returning from the disabled list. (His line in those two outings: 8.2IP, 1H, 1R, 1ER, 0BB, 8SO.) General manager Al Avila has plenty of work to do in the offseason when it comes to the pitching staff, but Verlander and Norris might help give Tigers fans some hope that next season might not look like this one.

Tigers' Miguel Cabrera developing 'bad habits' during recent slump

We've seen slumps from Miguel Cabrera before. Everyone goes through rough patches, even the best hitter in the game. Future Hall of Famers like Cabrera are generally less prone to them than others, but the two-time MVP still gets into the occasional funk.

Cabrera is in one of those rare slumps right now. Hitless in his last 19 at-bats, Cabrera is batting .167 with a .257 on-base percentage and two extra base hits since August 27. His last home run came on August 26 against lefthander Hector Santiago of the Los Angeles Angels. The 18-game homer-less streak is his longest of the season, and his longest since August 2014, when he was essentially playing on a broken foot.

Luckily, Cabrera's health is not an issue. He told MLB.com's Jason Beck that he is healthy, but has "gotten into bad habits at the plate." While it's strange that a player would develop these habits all of a sudden -- especially Cabrera, who was batting .370 at the time -- his swing is clearly off.

Take a look at Cabrera's swing when he homered off of Santiago. Note his right (back) foot, which pivots during the swing, providing a solid base for his stride and hip rotation during the swing. Cabrera also does a good job of keeping his front shoulder in during his stride, allowing for plenty of shoulder and hip rotation when he decides to turn on the baseball. The result is a beautifully violent swing (and two runs).

Cabrera showed a similar rotation in an at-bat later in the game, when he fouled off a pitch from Angels reliever Drew Rucinski. Cabrera's plant foot stays planted, and his front shoulder is still locked in.

Fast forward to Tuesday night, when Cabrera faced off against Phil Hughes of the Minnesota Twins, a pitcher that Cabrera has dominated throughout his career. In 44 plate appearances, Cabrera is batting .415/.455/.902 with five home runs off Hughes. One would expect this matchup to sway heavily in Cabrera's favor.

Instead, Cabrera went 0-for-2 (and 0-for-4 overall). He hit a sharp liner to right in his first at-bat, but the swing was clearly different than the two examples above from a few weeks ago.

Here, Cabrera's back (plant) foot starts to drift and his front shoulder opens up earlier. He still puts solid contact on the ball, but that's partly because Hughes delivers a belt-high fastball down the middle of the plate. This is a pitch that Cabrera should obliterate, yet he hits a hard-but-not-that-hard line drive with a rather weak swing. We don't see the same controlled violence that Cabrera put on display against Santiago.

Cabrera's bad habits reappeared throughout the game, including this weak groundout to shortstop.

It was after this play that Fox Sports Detroit announcer Rod Allen remarked that Cabrera's swing was "all arms," a reference to his drifting plant foot and early shoulder rotation.

It's difficult to say whether this is just a bad stretch for Cabrera or if he is injured, so we have little choice but to take his comments at face value. With two full days off before Friday's series opener against the Kansas City Royals, we will see if Cabrera has had time to iron out the kinks or heal whatever ails him. With his lead in the AL batting average race dwindling, his hopes for a fourth batting title may depend on it.

Slump withstanding, Miguel Cabrera closing in on 4th batting title

With time winding down on the 2015 season and his job safety providing a constant source of speculation, Detroit Tigers manager Brad Ausmus will likely find just about every move or decision he makes under scrutiny.

But here is one opinion Ausmus offered recently, on star slugger Miguel Cabrera, that very few people will dispute no matter how frustrated or outraged they are with the club's place in the American League standings: "He's the best hitter on the planet."

There have been very few bright spots of a dispiriting 2015 season for the Tigers. A porous pitching staff whose ERA is ranked dead-last in the American League. A bullpen that has imploded on multiple occasions, devoid of any true closer. An injury-riddled lineup that was whittled even further when the team's brass traded away some of its key performers at the deadline in July.

But, it is hard to find much fault with the type of season Cabrera is having, even with the 32-year-old two-time AL MVP mired in his current 0-for-20 slump.

Consider this: Cabrera, who was given the night off Wednesday as a result of his struggles at the plate, is still closing in on his fourth batting title, leading the AL with a batting average of .335, with Boston's Xander Bogaerts trailing him in second, hitting .321. Only Cabrera and Joe Mauer have as many as three batting titles since 2001. It's a remarkable feat, really, to be leading the American League even in what he likely considers a "down" year. It's an accomplishment that would also likely be garnering much more recognition if it were not for the team's dramatic downturn.

And if you go so far to suggest anything otherwise -- that he's not hitting for power, that he could still be somewhat hampered by the injury that landed him on the disabled list for the first time in his career this July -- Ausmus will stop you before you proceed. Ausmus will concede that Cabrera has been "a tick off" lately, as he told reporters in Minnesota, but among the many areas to dissect this season, this is not one that qualifies as high priority.

"I'm not going to question or complain about Miguel Cabrera's offense. He's hitting .350," Ausmus said during the team's last home-stand. "Homers come and go, sometimes come and go in bunches, and he's still driving in runs and that's the most important thing."

Indeed, it has still been a productive season for Cabrera, who did not even require a rehab assignment before returning from the DL. As of August 26, less than two weeks after he returned from the DL, Cabrera was batting .370 and his OPS was 1.086, both of which ranked first among all American League batters with at least 350 plate appearances, according to ESPN Stats and Info.

What is perhaps the most staggering aspect of all is that Cabrera has managed to put together another superlative offensive year with an injury thrown right into the middle of his campaign, one that sidelined him for almost six weeks and that at least a few trained talent evaluators believe has limited both his lower-body strength and his power, particularly recently.

“When Cabrera is at his very best he smokes the ball to center field, and deep center at that,” said one major-league scout who saw him recently. “His timing is not the same ... I do think the injury has contributed to his swing.”

Cabrera has just two home runs since returning from the disabled list on August 14. His last came on August 26. His batting average and OPS since then has dropped to .167 and .454 respectively, even though his batting average on balls in play have shown him to be at least somewhat unlucky (.208 as compared to the league average of .306), according to ESPN Stats and Info. In the month of September, Cabrera is batting just .192, with a slugging percentage of .231.

And yet, with the regular-season winding down, Cabrera is still in the driver's seat to finish on top. What is perhaps most impressive: He's still not satisfied.

Cabrera himself says he could be better and readily admits that he has fallen into some bad habits. He's far from complacent and is instead already eyeing improvements for next season.

"Yeah, hit more for power," he told ESPN.com in a recent interview. "I don't use my legs enough to be that consistent. It can be two or three days or it can be like a week where I don't hit in the gap because I don't feel the confidence in that power I used to hit."

A big part of that has been the mechanical adjustments in his swing and the training modifications required in recent years when injuries have hampered his offseason regimen as well as his in-season routine. Whereas he used to lift heavier with his legs, he's had to mix in more running the past few seasons, during which he has battled through a sports hernia, foot and ankle injuries prior to the Grade 3 calf strain sustained this year.

Cabrera said he's even willing to look into yoga this fall if that would prove beneficial heading into spring training. Anything that can help him stay healthy and productive next season.

The Tigers, awaiting mathematical elimination from the playoffs, are no longer playing meaningful baseball anymore, and that is paramount for Cabrera -- not the batting title. But that disappointment doesn't mean he will be tempted in any way to simply glide into a langorous offseason.

Even as one of the most feared, respected hitters in the game, Cabrera still strives to do better. Even if he does indeed capture that fourth batting title after all.

His goal for 2016?

"Be more ready for next year," he said. "Trying to hit more for power."

Miguel Cabrera: Will Only Play A Few More Games

NEWS UPDATE

The Tigers will limit Cabrera's playing time during the final week of the season,Anthony Fenech of the Detroit Free Press reports.

ROTOWIRE FANTASY ANALYSIS

With Cabrera struggling and the Tigers far out of contention, the slugger may only play two or three of his team's final six games. He has a comfortable lead over Xander Bogaerts for the AL batting title, and he reached the qualification minimum of 502 plate appearances Monday night.

More Miguel Cabrera News from RotoWire.com

Detroit 7, Texas 4: Why the Tigers won

At Globe Life Park, Arlington, Texas

■What happened: Justin Verlander threw six strong innings, allowing one run on six hits. Tyler Collins hit a three-run home run, his fourth of the season. Victor Martinez left the game with a sore left quadriceps. He will be re-evaluated on Tuesday. Martinez went 2-for-3. Former Tiger Prince Fielder went 3-for-4 and hit his 23rd home run of the year. Neftali Feliz picked up his fourth save in seven opportunities with the Tigers.

■Starting off: Verlander was in command from the outset, retiring eight of the first 10 hitters before falling into and out of trouble in the fourth inning. In that frame, he allowed a lead-off solo home run to Fielder before loading the bases on two hits and a walk but worked his way out of the jam with a popout and two strikeouts. "I really had to exhaust some pitches and some energy in that one inning and get out of it and keep us in the ballgame and that was really the turning point in the game," Verlander said. He struck out five and walked two over 107 pitches.

■Injury update: Martinez left the game after hobbling from first-to-third on a Nick Castellanos double in the fifth inning. He stayed in the game and scored but was lifted afterwards. "The quad isn't entirely new," manager Brad Ausmus said. "It has acted up before but not enough to get him out of the game." He didn't know if was related to the knee soreness Martinez has battled throughout the year and said he would be surprised if he played on Tuesday.

■At the plate: Miguel Cabrera went 1-for-4 and recorded his 502nd plate appearance of the season, officially qualifying him for the batting title. Cabrera leads the major leagues with a .336 average. He drove in the game's first run on a bases-loaded walk. Collins' line drive home run to rightfield was the big blow. James McCann piled on in the fifth inning with a two-run single.

■Overheard: "In fact, I think I felt four more gray hairs pop in," Ausmus said about the ninth inning.

■Three stars: 1. Collins; 2. Verlander; 3. Fielder.

■Up next: Tuesday at Rangers.