During the offseason, Ian Kinsler came to a realization.

He saw that the departure of Torii Hunter would leave a void for Detroit Tigers fans this season. He determined that someone needed to fill that void.

He decided that someone should be him.

Kinsler believes it's important to have a veteran everyday player who is willing to speak after every Tigers game -- win or lose -- because that is the best way for players to convey how the team is feeling to fans watching interviews on television or reading stories on the Internet or in the newspaper.

That was a role Hunter filled for the Tigers before he signed with the Minnesota Twins during the offseason. So Kinsler -- in his second year with the Tigers and his 10th in the majors -- decided to fill that void, to become the unofficial clubhouse spokesman who conveys the team's message to fans.

Entering spring training, his attitude toward Detroit media and Tigers fans was, as they say, in the best shape of its life.

"The most important thing is the fans," Kinsler said of his new role. "The second most important thing is my teammates, that they don't have to worry about it. They don't have to have people hovering over their shoulders if they're not comfortable with talking."

Now he's filling a role similar to one infielder Michael Young handled when Kinsler was a younger player with the Texas Rangers. And a role similar to one filled by Hunter in the last few seasons with the Tigers.

The game Sunday night was a good example. The Tigers suffered one of their toughest losses of the season. They had plenty of opportunities in the ninth and 10th innings but failed to score any runs despite loading the bases in both innings. Some questioned the decisions manager Brad Ausmus made. Many wondered whether a pitch that was ruled to have hit Alex Gordon actually hit him.

Kinsler cut to the chase.

"We lost the game," he told reporters after the game. "Sometimes we beat ourselves. Sometimes in baseball, there's situations that you could take advantage of that you don't. ... Sometimes you just don't perform. That's the way the game goes sometimes. We should probably have scored some more runs tonight."

"We scored one run. Regardless of that inning or the first inning or the second inning, we had 10 of them to score more than one run and we scored one run."

Hunter, whose Twins start a three-game series Tuesday in Detroit, said he wasn't surprised to hear that Kinsler has stepped into the role.

"I think Kinsler is the right person to step up and let the fans know how the mood is on the team," Hunter said. "He has a great personality, but he also has a passion for the game."

A positive side effect is that it can help take pressure off his teammates.

"Losing Torii was a loss to the fans, I feel like, because he got a veteran's say across to the fans," Tigers outfielder J.D. Martinez said. "When you have a bad game, you really don't want to talk to the media at the end of the day, to be honest with you. Anytime you have other people who can handle it when you just don't feel into it, it's nice."

Tigers fans who watch Kinsler's postgame interviews on Fox Sports Detroit likely have noticed a change. In 2014, his first season with the Tigers, Kinsler had a hard time masking his feelings. Ask him a question he perceived as dumb or showing a lack of baseball savvy, and Kinsler could not hide his disdain. It was as obvious as the smirk on his face. Fans watching postgame interviews could definitely see it.

Suggest that he can be snarky and sarcastic, and Kinsler pleads guilty as charged.

"Yeah," he said, interjecting after each descriptive term. "Yeah."

But Kinsler realized during the offseason that interviews weren't about give-and-take with the media. Now he sees every interview opportunity as a chance to share his thoughts on the game and the Tigers with the fans at home.

"I think I've become more comfortable with -- matter of factly -- that no one's ever really going to understand or think the same way that I do," Kinsler said. "That's just the way it's going to be. So I could fight it for the rest of my career and be the guy that's hard to talk to and doesn't want to talk to the media and is standoffish and whatever. But I think the situation that I'm in right now with this club, I think that I just kind of fit that role."

Kinsler now handles his interviews like a politician trying to get a message to his constituents. It's not about the specific question asked or the person asking it. It's simply about speaking to the fans.

"A lot of people don't understand the intricacies of the game," he said. "So when they ask a question, I automatically shut off because most of the time it just makes me angry. Or it used to, I guess. Now, I have time to say something, whether it's answering the question or not, that gives my point of view on what happened in the game."

Fans appreciate when players take that approach after both wins and losses.

"I would always tell guys, 'If you can answer questions when things are going well, you should be able to answer them when it's going bad,' " Hunter said. "Fans want to feel what we feel. When you're losing, they're losing. When you're winning, they're winning."

For Kinsler, Hunter's departure led to the realization that the team needed someone willing to talk to the fans -- win or lose -- every day.

"There aren't too many veteran players that play every day, besides the catcher and the pitcher, that can be put into that role," Kinsler said. "I've had enough experience and I've seen enough guys around me do that to understand it.

"I basically just had to change my perception of that role, I guess, and what it actually stands for."

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