Detroit Tigers slugger Miguel Cabrera will go down as one of the all-time greats, both in team history and in League history.
He’s on the verge of two additional milestones: 3,000 career hits and 500 career home runs. He’s currently at 2,866 and 487, respectively.
“I hope we can do both. I hope we can get to 500 and 3,000 this year,” Cabrera said. “It’s one of my goals this year.
And being the competitive player he is, Cabrera is ready for he and the Tigers to start winning again.
“I’m really hungry to get back to winning a high percentage (of games) again, because it’s no fun at all to play and lose almost every day,” he said. “Right now we’ve got a very good club to compete. I think we got very good talent, young talent. If we put everybody together, I think we can win more games than last year and the year before.”
So far, he’s liking what new manager A.J. Hinch has brought to the table.
“I think he’s got a great communication with us,” Cabrera said. “I think we’ve got a very good idea what he wants and we’ll go from there.”
And though it may sound like a broken record to fans, Cabrera states that he feels physically good, and has been putting in the work during the off-season.
I tried to work hard (this winter) to come and be in a good position here in spring training to go out there and get back on the field (at first base),” he said. “You know, in the last three years I’ve been hurt. I don’t want to do that. I don’t want to be hurting. I want to do my best. I want to do whatever I can to help this team win games.”
“What I learned the past two years as a veteran is that I need to talk more,” he said. “I always say I talk by the way I play in the field, but right now we’ve got a lot of young guys. They ask you some questions and I may be able to open up and try to talk to them and try to teach what I’ve learned in my career.”
– – Quotes via Evan Woodbery of MLive Link – –
