10/12/2006 10:47 AM ET Guillen: Comfortable at first MLBPLAYERS.com

Carlos Guillen celebrates after scoring on a sacrifice fly in the second inning. (Jed Jacobsohn/Getty Images)

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With our first baseman, Sean Casey, out of the lineup because of a torn muscle in his left leg, I moved from shortstop to first base, and will probably play there a lot in the American League Championship Series. It's not a new position to me. I played some during winter ball in my homeland of Venezuela and in the World Baseball Classic. During the regular season, I played in eight games there and started four. I feel comfortable.

Of course, the difference between the positions is the angles. At first base, it's important to be on time to the base when the hitter hits a ground ball somewhere in the infield. To me, it's easy. I don't feel it's too hard. My regular position, shortstop, is hard. When you play shortstop, you can play everywhere.

It was hard, though, in the seventh inning in Game 1 when I got an error on that spinning grounder by Jason Kendall. I'm not used to those balls. It's pretty tough having the spin and trying to catch it with two hands. I knew I was going to be in trouble as soon as he hit it because the ball was moving everywhere. Unfortunately, I didn't make the play, but then I started a double play after that to get out of the inning.

When Seattle first traded me to the Tigers (on Jan. 8, 2004 for Juan Gonzalez and Ramon Santiago), I knew we were going to have a good team. They had lost 119 games the year before, but we were getting pretty good young players, good pitching and good guys with good arms. The young pitchers got experience, and they're still young. From the attitude in the clubhouse, they've learned how to win ballgames.

We don't want to put pressure on ourselves. We're trying to play the same way we've been playing the whole year. Everybody has to have a nice at-bat, that's the key. Trying to put the ball in play makes a big difference. A lot of things can happen when you put the ball in play, so our idea is to look for a good pitch to hit and wait to hit it.

The difference from a couple of years ago to now is that back then, there weren't too many players who wanted to come to Detroit. Now, they know we are a pretty good team with good fans. This year will make an even bigger difference in attracting good players.

We have pretty good fans. Detroit is a sports city. We have the Pistons, the Red Wings, the Lions, and now we've got the Detroit Tigers. This is what the fans have been waiting for a long time, 20 years to go to the playoffs. This is a famous team to me. Back in the '80s, they won the World Series [1984]. Right now, the fans expect this kind of moment. They enjoy it.

Things turned around for us when the postseason started. We created the right attitude in the clubhouse, even when we were losing that last series against Kansas City we were starting to get it back.

I thought the Royals played better in the second half of the season, and they played well against us. You're not going to win every game. We lost those games, but we lost them on the field. We played hard nine innings every day and went into extra innings in the last game. It was a good attitude after the game.

Now, we know we can do well in the postseason. We believe in our team and our teammates. We have got to believe that we can win this thing.

Carlos Guillen, an All-Star in 2004, is in his seventh Major League season and third with the Tigers. He batted .320 with a career-high .400 on-base average, 19 homers, 85 RBIs and 100 runs in 2006.

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