Tigers' Austin Jackson looks confused as slump continues

Detroit— Tough day at the ballyard Saturday for a Tigers team that can't waste games as well-pitched as Phil Coke's start.

No knock against a rebuilding Kansas City Royals team, but when you hold the Royals to three runs you expect to do better than a 3-1 disappearance, especially when there are 33,810 at Comerica Park on a chilly, gray Saturday in April.

But that's what happens when your offense wilts. And when the Tigers' offense can't quite strike a match, it's generally because the front of the batting order isn't producing.

Austin Jackson, in particular.

He was 0-for-4 Saturday and is batting .176. He finished spring camp in an 0-for-25 slide, which means Jackson's struggles have now extended for three weeks.

Asked after Saturday's game if he thought Jackson was "pressing," Tigers manager Jim Leyland said, calmly: "I would think so."

Leyland's team has a lovely middle of the order. It has even gotten some punch from the back end because of Alex Avila's surge and Jhonny Peralta's escape from a horrid March.

Jackson, though, is the Tigers' leadoff man and has been doing the opposite of what he did from the get-go last season when he batted .300 for five months and finished at .293.

Factor in Will Rhymes, the No. 2 batter who had a hit Saturday to raise his average to .200, and it's no wonder the Tigers are so often stalled on offense and carrying a 3-5 record.

Youthful confusion

Jackson has the right attitude, anyway. He worked out long after Saturday's game and strolled toward his locker in the Tigers clubhouse as if it had been another day from his superb rookie season.

"Just baseball, you know," he said of a slump that is grinding at him more than he cares to let on.

"Been working on some things," he said. "But it's tough. It's not spring training anymore, so you have to fix some things on the go."

He and Tigers hitting coach Lloyd McClelland have been meeting regularly. Jackson has a leg kick that has sometimes misbehaved, dating to his days in the Yankees system.

Leyland, though, doesn't believe Jackson's problems are mechanical. They have nothing to do with his head seemingly pulling off the ball as it has sometimes appeared in the early going.

"He's swinging at balls and taking strikes — he's kind of caught in between," Leyland said, describing the classic case of a slump-stumped batter who's thinking more than reacting. "But he'll come out of it."

And he probably will. Jackson got 187 base hits in 2010. He was not only consistent, he steadily hit the ball hard, which was the biggest reason he had a .396 average on balls he put into play.

His skills aren't suspect. What's vulnerable is his youth. He turned 24 in February. Jackson was bound, at some point, to slip into a lull, to become confused, to endure that crucible known as a slump.

Those who expected it to happen during his sophomore season can feel vindicated, at least for today. But the likelihood that talent will trump turmoil is Jackson's consolation.

Leyland expected to give him a day off Sunday, when the Tigers wrap up their series against the Royals ahead of Texas coming to town for three games.

It will give Jackson a chance to calm down, to maybe forget about leg kicks, to not fret about why he's swinging at bad pitches and letting the juicy stuff go.

"When you get down on yourself, it gets tougher," he said after the clubhouse had all but emptied, with the only sound coming from vacuum sweepers.

The clubhouse guys were busy trying to make things fresh for Sunday's game.

The center fielder, it seems, was attempting to do the same.

lynn.henning@detnews.com