Detroit, last year's miracle team, is currently in seventh place 13 and a half games behind the Yankees, although only a half a game out of the first division. The may sound mediocre, but with a string of injuries and slumps Detroit is lucky to be able to field a team at all.

Slumps have hit the Tigers as hard as injuries. In spite of his 30 homeruns. Norm Cash in not last year's "Stormin' Norman," His .244 B.A. and 58 RBI don't approach his totals of last year at this time: .365.27 homers, and 92 RBI.

Infielders Jake Wood and Steve Boros, catcher Dick Brown, and pitcher Don Mossi have fallen far below last year's performances. It remains to be seen if the release of highly-touted rookie pitcher Howle Koplitz from the Army and the return of Kaline can boost Detroit back into the first division where the club belongs.

The Tigers aren't the only team to drop below the '61 record. While Baltimore holds steady in fourth and may well move higher, Cleveland and Chicago are having trouble holding their own. Both underwent face-lifting during the winter, and both are probably worst off because of them.

On the left is personified in the slender form of Chuck Schilling the dilemma of the Boston Red Sox. Do you leave a .220 hitter in the lineup? Or do you bench one of the greatest fielding second basemen in the history of the American League?

Schilling inadvertently solved the problem earlier this season when muscle injuries forced him from the lineup. But the sophomore infielder is back, and his huge glove and tiny bat pose a familiar problem for Manager Mike Higgins. If he can't afford to have Schilling out of the lineup, he can barely afford to have him in it either.

In his first seasons as Cleveland's General Manager, Gabe Paul will bear the onus of guilt for the most damaging trade of 1962: Vice Power and Dick Stigman to Minnesota for problem-child Pedro Ramos. While Power is hitting and fielding as well as ever, Ramos has won four, lost eight and compiled an E.R.A. of 4.58. The Indians have stopped hitting (team B.A.: .248) and have no power hitters to speak of. They could be headed for the second division.

As for the Go-Go White Sox, they've stopped. Despite Floyd Robinson and Joe Cunningham, Chicago is sixth in team batting (.253) and has only 65 homers, the lowest total in the majors by far. Finally, even the great Luis Aparicio has slowed up; White Sox speed is a thing of the past.

Out of the second division into the power vacuum have soared the Minnieota Twins and the Los Angeles Angels. Brilliant front-office work has matched fine handling of the teams by managers Sam Mele and Bill Rigney, and although the Angels are showing sings of folding (a nine-game losing streak in July and drop into third place), both teams could easily score a first-division finish.

Rigney and pitching coach March Grissom have handled the L.A. pitching staff superbly. With only one consistent starter, Ken McBride (11-4), the staff has totalled an incredible 316 appearances in 106 games this season. Although only McBridge has over eight wins, Dean Chance, Bo Belinsky, and Don Lee have been effective both as starters and relievers, and Rigney has even coazed good performance from the like of Ryne Duren and Eli Grbas.

The Minnesota Twins, though, will undoubtedly make the first division, and when they do, owner Cal Griffith will get the honors. It was Griffith who made the Twins infield, recommending that All-Star Richie Rollins and rookie Bernie Allen get the third and second base spots and trading for Vice Power, the league's fine stall-round first baseman. If Griffith seems to have slipped in trading Don Lee to Los Angeles for Jim Donahue (now in the minor leagues) well, the younger Donahue may still make it bigger than Lee in the future.

Critics claimed that the Twins rookie infield would wilt in the summer and with them the whole team. So far this appears unjustified. The team did slip in July, but has now won nine of its last eleven games. Bernie Allen has raised his batting, average to a respectable .267, and after a brief slump Rollins is still hitting .311.

Besides the new faces, Minnesota has its (relatively) old standby's, Earl Battey Lennie Green, Bob Allison, and Harmon Killebrew. The Twins have a real weakness, however, and it is a big one. After righhander Camilo Pascual and southpaw Jim Kaat, starting pitchs are hard to find.

From second-place Minnesota it's a long drop to the Boston Red Sox, but it needn't have been. Manager Mike Higgins has consistently mishandled his young team, and although the Red Sox have crucial weaknesses, they should be flirting with the first-Division teams rather than battling to stay ahead of ninth-place Kansas City.

Shortstop Eddie Brescoud, former National Leaguer, was close to the essence of Higgins mismanagement when he said recently that the American League emphasized power at the expert strike zone which doesn't happen all the time -- he's been bombed. Higgins manages the Red Sox as if Jackie Jensen, Ted Williams and two or three other forty-homer men were in the lineup. The face is, of course, they aren't