I returned to Marchant Stadium on Thursday after a few weeks at home. And I was immediately struck, not by those players I saw, but rather by those who were missing.
        Empty lockers lined the far wall of the clubhouse where Miguel Cabrera, Magglio Ordonez and Carlos Guillen usually dress. Curtis Granderson’s cubicle was vacant, too, as was the locker belonging to Armando Galarraga.
        Mail sat unopened, piled up on their chairs.
        Those are five key players without whom the Tigers will have little chance this season.
        By the middle of next week, all five will be back in camp, having completed their patriotic duties with Team Venezuela and Team USA in the World Baseball Classic. Good for them.                      
        But by then less than two weeks will remain before the regular season begins -- a season in which a fast start for the Tigers is imperative, both at the box office and for their own peace of mind.
        Jim Leyland likes to have his regulars together --  “bumping into each another,” he calls it -- leading up to Opening Day. “That’s always a good thing,” he said.
        That, Leyland believes, builds cohesiveness.
        But, because of the WBC, that time will be limited this spring.
        Leyland has watched some of the WBC games on TV, particularly those involving Venezuela and the U.S. “I can see by watching them, they need some work,” he said.
        Guillen, the Tigers’ new left fielder who needs to spend as much as possible at that position to prepare himself, has been used strictly as a DH by Venezuela in the WBC. In that regard, it has been a wasted spring. Guillen is batting .231.
        Cabrera is hitting .321, but Ordonez, who has been booed by his Venezuelan countrymen, is batting  a meager .208. Galarraga has pitched in just two games. Granderson is hitting .286 for the U.S.
        The WBC winds up this weekend, overshadowed in this country by the phenomenon known as March Madness.
        It remains to be seen how much the absence for most of this month of Cabrera, Ordonez, Guillen, Granderson and Galarraga  will hurt.
        But if the Tigers stumble coming out of the gate again this year, the WBC will  one of the reasons why.