Tigers manager Jim Leyland said all weekend that his offense will eventually hit this season, and the talent backs him up. This week would be a good time to start.

As stunning as Detroit's 2-10 record is for many, the pitching isn't the primary focus of it. Rather, it's the scope of futility from a lineup whose biggest question mark going into the season was whether it could top 1,000 runs. Through 12 games, it has scored just 33. The Tigers have suffered four shutouts in 12 games, and they haven't scored a run since the eighth inning on Friday night, having been blanked in back-to-back games by Gavin Floyd, Javier Vazquez and the White Sox bullpen.

Now, they head back to Detroit for a quick two-game homestand against the Minnesota Twins, owners of the second-lowest ERA in the American League. From there, C.C. Sabathia and Fausto Carmona await them in Cleveland for a two-game series. Then comes a four-game series at Toronto, where they'll likely miss Roy Halladay but face A.J. Burnett and the Blue Jays' talented back-end starters.

It has all the makings for another long week if Detroit's talented hitters can't get going. Leyland is confident that they'll get going, but he understands the urgency.

"We've got a lot of issues," Leyland said. "We have to fight through it. We just haven't been able to get in sync."

Detroit's players, meanwhile, feel the urgency. One particular player, rightly or wrongly, seems to feel it plenty.

"I feel like I've got to do it," third baseman Miguel Cabrera said. "I have to get on base. I have to do something to help the team so we can score runs."

Cabrera was expected to be the star slugger that pushed Detroit's offense from one of the best in baseball into a truly formidable lineup. However, no one knew what kind of adjustment period he and other new Tigers would face.

So far, whether it's changing leagues or entering the spotlight, there's been an adjustment. With Sunday's 1-for-4 performance, he raised his average on the season to .175. He has struck out 11 times in 46 plate appearances, and he has hit into as many double plays as he has driven in runs -- two apiece.

He called it his worst baseball, and it has him feeling more than simple pressure.

"I'm embarrassed," Cabrera said. "I think everybody's laughing right now."

But it's not just Cabrera, who drove in Detroit's last run with an eighth-inning single.

It's that type of pressing that seems to be building on the team. And instead of easing after Detroit scored 18 runs over three games through Friday, it increased on them over the last three games.

"There's so much pressure on a lot of guys," Brandon Inge said. "Now that it's started to compound, everyone knows that they have to really pick up the slack or it's going to be one of those ... you just get more attention this way. Bad teams are supposed to be bad teams, but when a team's supposed to be good and you're not doing well, you're going to come under a lot of heat."



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