While the second base position for the Detroit Tigers — one of their expressed positions requiring offseason attention — is shaping up to be all the usual suspects, there’s one less name in the hopper now.

The franchise announced Monday that it was not tendering a contract to Will Rhymes, their 2011 Opening Day starter at the position, making the 28-year-old a free agent.

That leaves utilityman Ramon Santiago — who re-signed with the club for two years at the start of December — and Ryan Raburn as the probable platoon, unless the Tigers make another move.

It’s been a merry-go-round of a position since the Tigers chose not to retain Placido Polanco after the 2009 season. None of the last three players to start the season at second base — Polanco in ’09, Scott Sizemore in ’10 and Rhymes in ’11 — remain on the roster. Six different players have started at the position in two seasons.

The diminutive Rhymes, a career .291 hitter in 633 minor league games, hit .304 in 54 games as an injury replacement at the end of the 2009 season, earning himself a shot at making the big-league club in spring training last year.

He did one better, earning the start on Opening Day, but — thanks to a .206 batting average — lasted just 28 games before the hot-hitting Sizemore took his spot. Rhymes would play in just one more game at the big-league level — a pinch-running cameo in Baltimore in mid-August — before the September call-ups.

Rhymes, who hit .235 for the season with the Tigers, did not make the postseason roster, but he made waves during the playoffs, nonetheless. A late-night post to Twitter during the American League Championship Series, questioning on-the-field moves, may have hastened his departure from the organization, although GM Dave Dombrowski denied that on the record, according to MLive's Chris Iott.

Worth noting: There have been increased social media restrictions on MLB players worked into the new Collective Bargaining Agreement.

Matthew B. Mowery covers the Tigers for The Oakland Press. Email him at matt.mowery@oakpress.com and follow him on Twitter @matthewbmowery. To get updates on the team sent to your phone, text “Tigers” to 22700. *Msg & Data Rates May Apply. Text HELP for help. Text STOP to cancel.

Plenty of folks have questioned the strategies of the Detroit Tigers throughout this season, on and off the field.

Count infielder Will Rhymes, who is not on the playoff roster, among those questioning the moves after Saturday's Game 1 of the American League Championship Series.

He posted the following on Twitter:

"I turned the game off when danny ran for santi, they are the same speed at best. Very confused. Ill check the box tomorrow"

Here's the situation he was talking about: Ramon ("Santi") Santiago, the starter at second base, got on in the ninth inning with a bunt single. As he represented the tying run, the Tigers had Danny Worth pinch run for him at first one out later. Worth, another infielder, was added to the roster when Delmon Young had to be left off for this round, because of an oblique injury.

The validity of the strategy became moot when Rangers reliever Neftali Feliz struck out the side — getting pinch hitter Wilson Betemit, followed by Austin Jackson and Ryan Raburn.

UPDATE: Rhymes sent out a clarifying tweet shortly after noon on Sunday.

"Some of you guys need to lighten up. It is so stressful for me watching these games, sometimes I just have to turn them off."

Ryan Raburn earned himself a shot at a full-time job with his hitting down the stretch last year.

Coming out of spring training, he was the starting left fielder, but through his own struggles and the hot start by Brennan Boesch, he was slowly phased into a rotation.

Starting Saturday, he’ll be the new primary second baseman, after neither Will Rhymes nor Scott Sizemore could lock down the job.

“I think you can safely say he’ll be our second baseman,” Tigers manager Jim Leyland told reporters after Friday’s 6-3 loss to the Red Sox. “To me, Raburn’s season starts tomorrow. Forget everything that’s happened to this point.”

That may be hard to do, unless the position change revitalizes Raburn’s bat.

The one-time utility man left April with a .253 batting average, but he’s hit just .100 so far in May, with just one extra-base hit. At one point, he was neck-and-neck with teammate Austin Jackson for the MLB lead in strikeouts.

Still, the pop in his bat is an upgrade over what the Tigers had been putting out there for most of the season.

Between them, Rhymes — who was demoted to Triple-A Toledo at the start of the month — and Sizemore — who was traded Friday for pitching help, in the form of lefty reliever David Purcey — hit just .221 with two doubles and six RBI in 35 starts at second.

Raburn and the other player in the mix, Ramon Santiago, combined to hit .313 with two doubles, two homers and seven RBI in just 13 starts at second.

Friday’s trade wasn’t the only move the Tigers made, optioning struggling reliever Ryan Perry to Toledo to clear room on the active roster for Andy Oliver, who will make a spot start Saturday, in the injured Phil Coke’s turn in the rotation.

In his last nine appearances, Perry allowed 13 earned runs in just seven innings pitched, as his ERA ballooned from a reasonable 3.00 to 14.04.

Leyland said the move was as much as anything to allow Perry — the Tigers’ first-round draft pick in 2008 — to “get away from it up here,” and work on mechanics. Thursday, Leyland said his “heart aches” for Perry because of his profound troubles.

The team will need to make an additional move to clear room on the roster for Purcey, when he arrives Saturday.

DETROIT — Scott Sizemore tried not to think about Detroit much during his exile to Triple-A Toledo this spring.

He knew something was up when he was scratched from the Mud Hens’ lineup just before Monday night’s game, though.

“When I went in the clubhouse to hit in the cage ... I saw Nev (Mud Hens manager Phil Nevin), he kind of gave me the ‘come here.’ And then he walked down to tell Argenis Diaz ... that he was going to play second. I kind of had a good idea at that point, but I wasn’t officially told until after the game,” Sizemore said of his call-up to the Tigers, unexpected to everyone but him, apparently.

The Opening Day second baseman for the Tigers a year ago, Sizemore lasted just 30 games before losing his job, and getting sent to the minors. This spring, he couldn’t figure out a way to reclaim it, losing the competition with Will Rhymes for the job.

But Sizemore didn’t sulk. Rather than concentrate on what could have been, or could someday be, the 26-year-old chose to focus on what was.

And he didn’t sit by the phone, waiting for the call-up.

“To be honest, I didn’t really even think about it. I didn’t let the stuff I couldn’t control affect me, just focus on the stuff on the field, and it seems to have paid off, thus far,” Sizemore said Tuesday, as he wandered around the Tigers locker room, collecting high-fives, fist-bumps and hugs, and trying to find his locker.
“I think anytime you worry about things you can’t control, it takes a little bit of the control away from you. My mindset was just to do everything I could on the field, and whatever happened with the front office up here, is just out of my control. Can’t do anything about it.”

But Sizemore did do something about it: He tore the cover off the ball in Toledo, leading the International League with a .408 average. His extra-base pop — seven doubles, one triple, two homers — was part of the reason the Tigers called him up after Monday’s game, the first step in an attempt to fix the feeble top of their batting order.

“Just knowing what I had to do to get back up here,” Sizemore said of his focus. “You’re not going to get handed the job. You’ve gotta kind of force the issue. That was my mentality, just go down there, work as hard as I could, do everything I could to earn an other shot.”

Last year, that shot quickly slipped away. He was hitting .206 when he was sent down to Toledo on May 15. He didn’t return to the bigs until the September call-ups.

In the interim, Carlos Guillen took over the job until he got injured, then Rhymes shined in his opportunity the rest of the way.

That, as much as anything, was what got Rhymes the job in Spring Training. While Rhymes outhit Sizemore on the Grapefruit League circuit (.328 to .243), much of that difference was in the final few games of the spring, when Rhymes already had the job in hand.

And while Rhymes was hitting just .221 when he was optioned to Toledo after Monday’s game, manager Jim Leyland was insistent that it was more a matter of circumstance than performance.

“It’s not like Will Rhymes did so bad. I certainly don’t want to indicate to anybody that we’re blaming all of our offensive woes on Will Rhymes. That’s not the case. The case in this matter is, we’re looking for a little punch,” Leyland said of Rhymes, who’s never going to be confused for a power hitter. “So he kind of caught the short end of the stick, to be honest with you.”

Rhymes’ advantage over Sizemore — aside from defense — might be in his fit for the No. 2 spot in the order, where you want someone who can move a runner into scoring position for the big RBI guys. Problem was, Rhymes didn’t have that opportunity too often, considering the struggles of leadoff man Austin Jackson in getting on base.

Sizemore may be a step below Rhymes, defensively, but he’s making up ground, thanks to a return to health. He missed time in the 2008 season with a wrist injury, then returned to earn honors as the Tigers’ Minor League Player of the Year in 2009, before a fractured ankle ended his season prematurely.

It’s taken him more than a year to get his mobility and flexibility completely back, and regain the range robbed from him by the injuries.

Now the test will be to continue his torrid hitting, something that was even more unexpected to Sizemore than the call-up.

“To be honest, you’d say yeah (it’s unexpected). You can’t ever expect to hit like that going into the season. Of course, I know I’m capable of doing that, it’s just being mentally focused, and it’s not really necessarily looking at my results, but what I do with the at-bat. It just keeps kind of going well for me,” said Sizemore, struggling to remember a time in his career that he’d hit so well for so long, and settling on a three-week span in Class A.

Even if it doesn’t keep up at quite that same pace, he’s still reasonably sure that Tigers fans haven’t seen the real Scott Sizemore yet.

“I’d like to think so. I think I’ve got a lot more in the tank,” he said. “It’s just putting your best foot forward, and showing everybody else what you’ve got.”

Short hops
• New York starter CC Sabathia has been up-and-down in his career at Comerica Park, starting 6-0 in his first eight starts there, but going 1-4 with a 5.63 ERA since 2006. Entering Tuesday night, he had not beaten the Tigers on the road as a Yankee.

• Alex Avila’s two home runs Monday night marked his second multi-homer game of his short major league career. According to the Elias Sports Bureau, he became just the second Tigers catcher in 15 years (Pudge Rodriguez, Aug. 8, 2004) to hit two home runs in a home game. Avila came into Tuesday night’s game leading all MLB catchers in RBI (21) and total bases (48), ranking second in home runs (5) and triples (1), third in doubles (6) and runs (12). He’s hitting .309 and slugging .593, both totals best among full-time catchers.

• The Tigers continue to pound out doubles, hitting at least one in 27 of 29 games after Ramon Santiago’s two-bagger Monday night.

Rumors were swirling Monday night that Scott Sizemore might have earned the call-up from Triple-A Toledo after last year’s Opening Day starter at second base for the Tigers last season was a healthy scratch for the Mud Hens’ game vs. Pawtucket.

Tigers president and GM Dave Dombrowski confirmed the move — calling Sizemore up, and optioning Will Rhymes down — after Monday’s game. Sizemore was leading the International League with a .408 average, while Rhymes was hitting just .221 after the weekend.

"As you know, we’ve been scuffling from an offensive perspective, and Sizemore’s been hitting very well ... We figured it was a way to get a little more pop in the lineup, maybe get some extra-base hits and try to get things going at the top of the order for us," Dombrowski said.

Tigers manager Jim Leyland was quick to point out that the struggles of the Tigers' offense — which include leadoff man Austin Jackson hitting just .188, and No. 3 hitter Magglio Ordonez posting an anemic .151 average, a slugging percentage of .164 and just one lone RBI — are not all the fault of Rhymes, normally the No. 2 hitter.

“Sometimes, you’re the victim of a situation of ... you’re not really tearing it up — and we didn’t really expect him to — but sometimes you’re the victim of a situation where a few guys aren’t hitting, and he’s a second baseman, and the guy who’s hitting .400 is a second baseman. So, it’s not like Will Rhymes did so bad,” Leyland said. “I certainly don’t want to indicate to anybody that we’re blaming all of our offensive woes on Will Rhymes. That’s not the case. The case in this matter is, we’re looking for a little punch. ... So he kind of caught the short end of the stick, to be honest with you.”

As highly anticipated as the move has been — there was a populist movement to "free Scott Sizemore" on Twitter — it won't be the cure-all to a team that's struggling in all aspects of the game.

And it might not be the only move coming. Victor Martinez, who will resume his role as the primary DH, is eligible to return from the 15-day disabled list on Wednesday. His return will mean that Ordonez will either have to spend more time in the outfield, or possibly sit for a while. Leyland noted after Monday's game that Ordonez could be moved down in the order at times, or out of it.

Sizemore's promotion to the big club will also mean that Ryan Raburn will spend most of his time in the outfield again, rather than splitting his starts between left and second base. That, too, would indicate that Ordonez might be destined for some time off, since Leyland's more likely to leave Brennan Boesch (.300) in the lineup, as either the right fielder or DH.

Finally, Phil Coke's solid start against the Indians — more reminiscent of his first two starts of the season than his last two horrible outings against Seattle — may have staved off the conversations about moving him back to the bullpen, at least for now.

But if he begins to struggle again, it will be hard for Leyland and Dombrowski — both men in the final year of their current contracts with the Tigers — to ignore the seasons that young lefties Andy Oliver (3-1, 3.64 ERA, 31 K/29.2 IP) and Charlie Furbush (2-1, 1.90 ERA, 32 K/23.2 IP) are putting together in Toledo.