SAN DIEGO — One of the first questions Tigers manager Ron Gardenhire fielded at his Winter Meetings media session was how long it took him after the season to decompress.
“Who said I’m decompressed,” Gardenhire said with a smile. “Still working on it.”
A 114-loss season requires some recovery time. It also requires some introspection.
With an inexperienced, injury-depleted roster, no one expected a successful 2019 season in Detroit. But the depths of the struggles wore on everyone, including a manager and coaching staff forced to spend more time teaching than most Major League staffs. It wore on everyone down the stretch.