By John Klima
Staff Writer

Joe Maddon was ruminating over the state of the American League the other day, pondering how it came to this. His club had just gone from facing Cleveland (and Travis Haftner) and New York (and Alex Rodriguez) to Anaheim (and Vlaidmir Guerrero).

“Everyone’s got a freak these days,” Maddon said. “They’re all over. It seems like you always run into a hitter like that.”

The chances are that Maddon could still smell the residue of Tiger manager Jim Leyland’s Marlboros when he arrived in Anaheim Wednesday. The Tigers had been in on Monday and Tuesday, with one exception – their freak was anything but smoking.

Gary Sheffield has had bad starts with new teams before, but a slow start at the age of 38, coming off a season in which he played in only 39 games with the Yankees due to a left wrist injury, is always troublesome. Much like the stench from Leyland’s Marlboros, you can dodge the question but you can still smell it.

In true Sheffield style, however, it’s not like him to run for the trainer’s room when the questions come. No, he says, it’s not because he’s a fulltime DH for the first time in his career. No, he says, it’s not because he’s pressuring himself. Yes, it’s because he can’t find his swing. Truth be told, there are probably elements of truth in all three of those aspects, yet when swirled together, they make for a mote as murky as the smoke Leyland leaves behind.

“When you’re the No. 3 hitter, you’re supposed to ignite the offense,” Sheffield said. “You have to make things happen. The way I was playing, I was killing rallies and killing innings and not giving (Magglio Ordonez and Carlos Guillen) chance to do something.”

Sheffield has worked on returning to basics, and in Anaheim, said that his batting practice swings indicated that he is close to finding his stroke, which means going back up the middle and going to right field for the right-handed hitting Sheffield. He began the week hitting .119. He ended it hitting .xxx. Little strides are measured by base hits up the middle. He had two of those against the Angels Monday and pronounced himself on the road back.

“Any time I hit the ball up the middle, and I thought I had a good, powerful swing, is good for me,” he said. “That’s my sign. I’m not pulling off the ball. As long as I stay there I’m a complete hitter and I can hit the ball to right field. I use my legs. That’s the key. Earlier in the year I was squatting down and trying to be patient at the plate as opposed to being aggressive.”

Sheffield was supposed to be the piece that made the defending American League champions an even more formidable team. That hasn’t happened thus far, but Leyland has kept the Tigers aloft despite some early season rotation struggles and a spotty offense. He’s done that with the help of an unsung bullpen (Jason Grilli, Bobby Seay) helping plug the holes left by an injured Jose Mesa and Fernando Rodney, whose next problems reduced him to a batting practice pitcher for much of the month.

But the focus in Detroit has been on Sheffield, who was acquired from the Yankees for three minor leaguers last November. The Tigers believe they traded for the same Sheffield that hit .291 with 34 home runs and 123 RBIs for the Yankees in 2005.

“Nothing’s wrong with his bat speed, nothing’s wrong with his eyes, he’s just anxious,” Leyland said. “He’s putting a lot of pressure on himself. He wants to impress his new teammates and fans. He just needs to get a couple of games where he swings the bat good and he’ll be fine.”

The Tigers are convinced Sheffield isn’t suddenly acting his age, so much so that Leyland demanded focus be removed from Sheffield and thrust onto other hitters in his order (Sean Casey, Craig Monroe) who haven’t been productive.

“People got to get off the Sheffield thing,” Leyland said. “We got a whole bunch of guys who aren’t hitting. We got to talk about our team offensively and talk about who’s not hitting the ball. We got to stop zeroing in on Gary and zero in on everybody. Sean Casey is a .300 hitter. Craig Monroe had a hell of a year last year and he’s not hitting yet. We’re talking about guys who can hit. We’re putting too much on Sheffield and not enough on the entire offensive situation, in my opinion. That’s not over-protecting Gary, because Gary hasn’t gotten rolling yet. But we’ve had a lot of games where if anyone would have hit, we would have won. You can’t sit around and wait for other people. You got to do it yourself. We got to get to hitting the ball.”

Casey likes to tell the story about the game in Cincinnati when Sheffield hit a line drive so hard that it nicked off the shoulder of left fielder Adam Dunn before Dunn could even react to the ball.

“(Dunn) said he felt like he was playing third base because the ball was on him so fast,” Casey said. “You go to Cincinnati and that ball he hit is a legend. I still think it’s the hardest ball I’ve ever seen hit in 10 years in the big leagues.”

April is almost over, and as Sheffield shows signs of life, the Tigers hope their freak’s season will not dissipate into thin air.

John Klima is a baseball writer with the Los Angeles Newspaper Group.