Mike Celizic

If the Detroit Tigers play just a little more than .500 the rest of the season, they’ll finish with 100 wins, or just 19 fewer than the number of games they lost three years ago. It’s yet to be shown that they’re the best team in baseball, but there can be no debating now, with fewer than 40 games to play, that they are the best story of the year.

If they were playing in New York, they’d be the Miracle Tigers, and the two people most responsible for their success, team leader and veteran catcher Pudge Rodriguez and manager Jim Leyland would be posing for sculptors looking to cast them in bronze. Instead, playing in a struggling city in the country’s gritty midsection, they’ve been overshadowed all year by the glamour teams to the east and the tight pennant races everywhere else.

They’ve also been the victims of the expectations of many that sooner or later, they’d realize who they are and collapse. Indeed, two weeks ago, the team hit the rough patch that everyone said they would, losing nine of 12 games and seeing a double-digit lead over the Chicago White Sox cut in half.

But Monday night, they took out the White Sox and jacked their lead up to 6 1/2 games. Their terrific rookie starter, Justin Verlander, gave up just one run to Chicago while the offense was kicking Jose Contreras around for seven runs. The win was the club’s 80^th in 125 starts; if the Tigers go 20-17 the rest of the way, they’ll have those 100 wins.

What’s amazing is that 11 players on the team — nearly half the roster — was around for that 119-loss season in 2003. Among them were Rodriguez and pitchers Jeremy Bonderman and Mike Maroth, who together lost 40 games. This year, they’re a combined 16-7, although Maroth, who is 5-2, is on the disabled list.

That’s where Rodriguez comes in. He joined the Tigers fresh from a world championship with the Marlins in 2003. Although he doesn’t hit home runs as he did when he was younger — and, perhaps coincidentally, since baseball started seriously testing for steroids — he’s a solid, .300 hitter headed for the Hall of Fame. Accused of being the best catcher in history, he’s been a great settling influence not just on Detroit’s young pitchers, but also on the older-than-40 leader of the staff, Kenny Rogers, with whom Rodriguez played years ago in Texas.

Rogers had come from his second tour of duty with Texas, where he was working on his cameraman throw and getting razzed out of ballparks. In Detroit, he hasn’t caused a whisper of controversy. Instead, he started the All-Star game.

No one has yet come up with a formula to quantify how many wins a great catcher adds to a pitching staff. Certainly, in 2004, Rodriguez didn’t make much difference to a team that couldn’t buy a victory. But no one doubts that a great catcher makes a difference — maybe an enormous one.

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