Detroit — Tigers manager AJ Hinch didn’t flinch.
Did you get the support you needed from general manager Al Avila?
“Al was great to me,” he said, speaking minutes after Tigers chairman and CEO Christopher Ilitch announced that Avila had been fired as the club’s general manager. “He was the first person who called me and wanted me to come in for an interview. At the time I was on the outside of the sport looking in.
“That meant the world to me. That’s all the support anyone could want.”
Avila also gave Hinch a large voice in player personnel decisions, something his predecessors, Brad Ausmus and Ron Gardenhire didn’t get.