DETROIT >> This is more than a rough patch, more than just a couple of games where the Detroit Tigers have fallen flat against a good team or a good pitcher.

This is an out-and-out slump, and it’s approaching five weeks in duration, a span in which the Tigers saw their divisional lead cut from an MLB-best seven games, to less than two Friday night, for the first time since April 30.

There are a hundred places you could point to for the cause.

Poor starting pitching for a stretch.

Recurring issues in the bullpen, exaggerated by recurring issues with closer Joe Nathan.

A rash of shaky defense.

“I think it’s everything. When we’ve pitched, we haven’t hit. When we’ve hit, we haven’t pitched. It’s just not going together right now,” Don Kelly said after Friday’s shutout loss. “It will. We just gotta keep grinding it out.”

Maybe most perplexing is a suddenly anemic offense that has gotten shut out three times in 18 games.

While the starting pitching isn’t as worrisome, simply because of the track records of the pitchers involved, and the bullpen isn’t really that much of a surprise to anyone, considering the low expectations, the offense is a conundrum.

This is the unit which was so vastly remodeled in the offseason, trading power for speed, then spent the first two months proving how wise a decision that was.

In the last five weeks, however, it’s reverted to a unit that sits back and waits for the three-run home run, it seems like. And they aren’t coming.

At least not enough to sustain a team that’s in a free-fall in other areas — including the standings.

“Just seems we’re having trouble getting the big hit. The two-run double, or the three-run homer is just not coming right now,” manager Brad Ausmus said. “The big hits for us right now are solo home runs and the occasional two-run homer. We’re just not getting that blow-it-open hit right now.”

That’s no more evident than a game like Friday, when Ausmus felt like they had one, maybe two solid chances to score against a pitcher in Minnesota’s Kyle Gibson who they’d blown off the mound in the second inning the first time they’d met him.

Of course, that was when they were still hitting like gangbusters.

In the 24 games before Saturday’s, the Tigers had scored 3.6 runs per game, down more than a run from the first 39, when they averaged 4.84. That’s concerning, considering the team’s record in games when it scores four runs or less (10-26), compared to its record when scoring five or more (24-3).

It’s been more exaggerated in the last five weeks — a span of 24 games since the high-water mark of May 18 — when the Tigers have gone 1-15 when scoring four or fewer runs. The lone exception was Max Scherzer’s complete-game shutout on Thursday.

That makes it hard on a pitching staff already having its own struggles to feel like it needs to shut out the opponent.

What’s been the biggest difference in that offensive downturn?

Batting average is down 20 points, as is on-base percentage, while slugging is relatively level. Walks are up, as are home runs. They’re (surprisingly) leaving roughly the same number of runners on base per game.

“The at-bats we’ve had off (Chris) Sale (Thursday), I don’t really think you can call it a slump. We’ve hit the ball well. Bounces just haven’t gone our way sometimes,” Kelly said. “But you gotta make your bounces, too.”

It’s that ‘waiting’ part.

Waiting for the big hit to come, rather than going out and making things happen.

That was the welcomed calling card for the team in the first 39 games, when the Tigers stole a league-leading 37 bases. They’ve swiped eight since, and been caught seven times.

“Game scenario plays into whether you’re more aggressive on the bases, however oftentimes, your steals go down when the guys who are stealing bases aren’t on base,” said Ausmus, pointing to the recent struggles of both Rajai Davis and Ian Kinsler, the team’s table-setters.

“When they’re scuffling a little bit with the bat, and not on base ... It’s tough to ask Miguel (Cabrera) to be stealing bases left and right, or Victor (Martinez) to be stealing bases left and right. ...

“I think it’s just the fact that the guys who steal the bases haven’t been on base as much as they were early in the season.”

That’s true, to a large extent.

Davis’ average has dropped nearly 20 points in this recent bad patch, when he’s scored just six times, after 20 runs in his first 31 games. He’s also stolen just four bases, after 14 to start the season.

Kinsler’s drop-off has been even more pronounced, his .220 mark over the last 23 games dropping him more than 30 points from .315 to .279. He’s even more cold (.132 average, .466 OPS) in the 16 games since his lone day off of the season snapped his 11-game hit streak.

It doesn’t help that the other table-setter, Torii Hunter, came into Saturday’s game hitting just .194 in June, with just one extra-base hit.

Until one or more of those guys start to come around, the Tigers’ offense is going to continue to splutter.

It won’t be able to put the pressure on the opposing pitcher that it was expected to be, and was earlier in the season.

While the Tigers keep waiting for that to happen, they’ll have to keep waiting to win games, rather than making it happen.