DETROIT — The Detroit Tigers know they are playing on Tuesday no matter what happens today.

That's why Tigers manager Jim Leyland isn't going to dwell on yesterday's 9-6 loss to the Kansas City Royals. He was even able to joke about the Tigers missing a chance to clinch the AL Central.

"This is over with, you can't bring this game back. I'm not going to be disappointed long," Leyland said. "I guess everybody knows that I was accurate on thing this year, I said it was going to go down to the wire."

Detroit would have wrapped up the division with a win after the Chicago White Sox beat the Minnesota Twins, 6-3, earlier in the day, cutting the Tigers' magic number to one. Detroit ends the regular season today against the Royals.

"No one is going to have a problem getting up for this game," Sean Casey said. "It's to win the division. I think the guys will be excited. It's what we've been shooting for all year."

With a win or Twins loss today, Detroit will take the AL Central and host Oakland for the start of the division series and Minnesota will be the wild card and open on the road against the New York Yankees.

However, if the Twins win and the Tigers lose, Minnesota will take the division and host the A's and Detroit will go to New York.

Following a 1 1/2-hour rain delay at the start yesterday, Kansas City sent 12 batters to the plate in a seven-run first inning.

Joey Gathright opened the game with a double and advanced to third when Esteban German singled to cap a 10-pitch at-bat. David DeJesus hit the first of his two triples in the game for a 2-0 lead and Mike Sweeney followed with a two-run homer, giving the Royals a cycle with the first four batters.

"We had a great first inning and then we just hung on," interim Royals manager Bill Doran said. "We knew they would come roaring back with that offense, so we were going to need every run we could get. We did enough to win."

The boos from the sellout crowd turned to cheers when Leyland pulled starter Zach Miner (7-6) after 32 pitches.

Miner only lasted one-third of an inning, allowing five hits and five runs.

Leyland said Miner was throwing well in warmups.

"He's a sinkerball pitcher, all his pitches were up in the zone. I don't have any problem with that, he hadn't started in a while," Leyland said.

Andrew Miller came on and allowed Paul Phillips to score on a wild pitch, and gave up Gathright's two-run single for the 7-0 lead.

"I stunk, I didn't do my job," Miller said. "I came in with a chance to keep us in the game and I didn't do that."

Carlos Guillen had an RBI single in the bottom of the first and Detroit scored three runs in the third to pull to 7-4. Placido Polanco scored when third baseman German misplayed Guillen's grounder, and Matt Stairs hit a two-run double.

Ambiorix Burgos gave up four runs and six hits over 2 2/3 innings in his first start of the season.

Todd Wellemeyer (1-2) allowed one run in four innings of relief, and Jimmy Gobble got the last three outs for his second save in three chances this season.