The percentage would be 99.99 of the time when Tigers manager Jim Leyland is asked a straight question about his lineup, or anything else, he gives a straight answer. But when he goes off on a condescending rant like the one before Tuesday's game vs. Cleveland when questioned about a truly questionable lineup, it does cause much self-inflicted damage to his reputation.
 Fans in this town care so much about the lineup nightly because they care so much about the team. It's the first week of September and they are neck-and-neck against the White Sox with the expectation from the onset of the season the Tigers would win the AL Central.
When Leyland rests a 25-year-old center fielder, Austin Jackson, the third-best position player on the club one day, and the team's hottest hitter recently, Delmon Young, the next, both for players who could easily be in the minor leagues, Quintin Berry and Don Kelly, there are questions. The media asks those questions. The answers aren't always accepted as gospel. They are second guessed. Fans have every right to do that. Ultimately, they do pay the freight. It is be expected. It is part of the media's responsibility to not only ask those questions on behalf of their readers or listeners, but analyze them honestly when in the role of columnist or commentator.
If there is anybody who should understand this, it's somebody who had managed baseball professionally since 1970, and been in major league uniform for the better part of 30 years, like Jim Leyland.
When a team is in trouble is when nobody cares what the lineup is. There have been too many years when filling out the lineup card in September in Detroit was the easiest managerial task in baseball, the chance of second-guessing nil. You know, before the Tigers were not selling out each night, prior to their broadcast ratings sky-rocketing and when baseball was left for dead in this town.
Until the last couple days, I felt this was Leyland's best job of managing with the Tigers. It was a very rough early season when Jackson and Doug Fister were out, every umpiring call or break went against the team and it was just floundering overall amid expectations that were exceptionally high after last season's playoff run and the subsequent signing of Prince Fielder. There weren't goofy lineups or outbursts toward the fans or media like there had been in the past, which were few and far between, but drew much attention.
Leyland was a calm hand at the wheel and navigated the Tigers through what could have been a perfect storm for disaster.
OK, so now the Tigers are there and it is still a little rocky, which is to be expected because that is just the way pennant races are, but everything the Tigers sought is still very much on the table.
How does going into goofy lineup mode after sweeping the White Sox in three straight games help? Or defending what turned out to be the indefensible when it is consider two one-run losses to a club that had been playing as poorly as any in baseball, the Indians, ensued?
It does not.
My gut feeling is this will pass. The Tigers will win the division (the White Sox are living on borrowed time with that pitching staff) and perhaps do well in the postseason. Overall, I still Leyland as one of the Tigers best managers of all time. I vividly recall the period between Sparky Anderson and Leyland's arrival and just what a mess that team was in the clubhouse, dugout and on the field.
But this was unnecessary, and does not reflect well on the Tigers as an organization.
And if the Tigers do stumble from this point forward, these two days will be remembered from here to eternity by baseball fans in this town.
Why? Well, let me repeat.
BECAUSE THEY CARE!!!!