NEW YORK -- Amid the magic numbers and the strength-of-schedule breakdowns, the American League race is tantalizingly simple:

One month. Three teams. Two playoff spots. One division.

The American League East and West ought to lend all available video cameras to the Central, because that's where the action is. The Tigers, White Sox and Twins are fighting for two playoff berths.

Not long ago, this looked like a five-team race for three spots. But then the Yankees swept five games from the Red Sox. Now Boston is reportedly looking to trade David Wells, a clear sign that the Red Sox are forgetting the playoffs and trying to save money on clubhouse beer.

The Red Sox are out and the Yankees are in; all that's left is the paperwork.

That means the Central will produce one division winner, one wild-card team and one really unhappy Midwestern city. With fewer than 30 games to play, the Tigers have a 4 1/2 -game lead on Chicago and a five-game lead on Minnesota.

Since Aug. 7, the Tigers have lost 15 of 22 games. The chief problem, according to a detailed statistical analysis, is that they're making too many outs. In their 6-4 loss to the Yankees on Thursday afternoon, the Tigers had two hits before the ninth inning.

"That's not enough offense," Tigers manager Jim Leyland said. "I think we'll get (better), and we'll need to."

Craig Monroe's ninth-inning home run Wednesday was a wonderful moment. Thursday's two-run ninth-inning showed, for the 47th time, that the Tigers never give up. But would it kill them to score some plain old third-inning runs?

The lack of scoring is why Omar Infante should be the regular second baseman. Infante actually had the starting job after Placido Polanco got hurt, but Infante went off to get a hot dog and when he came back Neifi Perez had taken his place. Perez is wiser and has softer hands. But so what? The Tigers need a run-producer, not a masseur.

Infante hit a home run Thursday, giving him four total bases with one swing. Perez has five in 32 at-bats as a Tiger.

Leyland said Infante would get more playing time now because Perez was injured. But the injury is minor, and Leyland acknowledged that Infante probably would have been in the lineup more often anyway.

So there you go. Omar Infante will save the offense.

What? Not what you were looking to hear?

Well, did you notice that Magglio Ordonez hit a home run and a long double Thursday?

"Hitting is contagious both ways sometimes," first baseman Sean Casey said. "I think Maggs is going to have a good September. If he has a good September, that will be really big for us."

I know this all seems terrible: 15 losses in 22 games, a lead that shrunk in half in a month, guys who seem to be swinging cracked bats. And the reason it looks shaky is that it is.

But remember that other teams slump, too. The Twins narrowly avoided a home sweep to the Royals this week. The Royals! Now the Twins have to visit Yankee Stadium this weekend without their one reliable starter, Johan Santana.

And the Tigers are not going to lose two-thirds of their games the rest of the way. I just can't imagine it, and more importantly, neither can the Tigers. They remain the same calm, focused bunch that built this lead. They just need one good series, and with the Angels and Mariners visiting Comerica Park in the next week, they should get it.

"This team is very strong and very positive," catcher Pudge Rodriguez said. "We gotta play this last month of the season hard and see what happens. But I think we're OK."

Ah, the old self-help book: "I'm OK, We're OK, Let's Hope The Twins Are Not." For more than a decade, Detroit clamored for a pennant race. Here it is.