Beginning Monday, with this season and the postseason -- in other words, everything -- on the line, the Tigers will open what will be, without a doubt, their biggest homestand of the year.
        Indeed,  considering the fact the Tigers already had a place in the playoffs clinched when they came home for the final week of the 2006 season, it will be their biggest homestand in many, many years.
        Throw in the fact that the Tigers will celebrate the 25th anniversary of their 1984 world championship with a reunion of that team on Monday night, and you have the makings of quite a week.
        Depending upon what happens this weekend in Chicago, and in Minnesota’s series against Kansas City, the Tigers could be in a position to clinch the American League Central title during their four-game showdown Sept. 28-Oct. 1 against the refuse-to-die Twins.
        If not, it will all come down to the Tigers’ three-game series against the fast-fading Chicago White Sox at Comerica Park on the final weekend of the regular season, Oct. 2-4.
        Looking ahead, here are the tentative pitching match-ups for that critical rematch against the Twins, who, you surely recall, took two out of three from the Tigers in Minnesota last weekend:
        Monday -- Rookie Rick Porcello against Nick Blackburn
        Tuesday -- Ace Justin Verlander against rookie Brian Duensing
        Wednesday --  Eddie Bonine, filling in for injured Jarrod Washburn who may be gone for good, against Tiger killer Carl Pavano
        Thursday -- Nate Robertson, hero of last Sunday’s desperation win, against Scott Baker.
        It is imperative that the Tigers get out of those four huge games.
        The way the Twins are playing, that won’t be easy.