Aside from getting a win on Opening Day, there were quite a few things from today’s game that made me happy.

Not to diminish Kenny Rogers outing, or Chris Shelton doing what Chris Shelton does, but I think the highlight probably had to be seeing Joel Zumaya in action. I’ve heard all the praise, and I saw him at the Future’s game (from the next to last row of the upper deck). I was ecstatic to see that he lived up to the hype – at least in this outing.

His fastball was consistently 97-99, and his curve ball seemed to have serious break. In fact, even though he ended up walking Mike Sweeney, it wasn’t before he put him on his seat with an inside curveball. (Jeff Weaver may have been a punk, and Sweeney may otherwise be a decent guy, but I’ve always hated him since the helmet throwing incident of 2002. As such I took glee in the confused look on his face after the pitch) As Eddie said in the comments,

Multi-inning dominant relievers are an assett. If they are 21 and throw 99 mph while keeping the ball down, all the better. I am looking forward to the Joel Zumaya era.

As exciting as it was seeing him come out of the pen, I couldn’t help but have visions of him in the rotation.

In any case, it was nice to see him get in right away and to succeed in a game that was still very much in doubt.

Other things I like seeing:

• Carlos Guillen crushing a ball, and beating out an infield single
• Kenny Rogers keeping the Royals off balance for six very solid innings
• Chris Shelton hitting the ball hard in all 4 at-bats, and having some nice results to show for it
• Pudge taking a walk
• Fernando Rodney pitching an uneventful 9th for the save

But of course, there were some negatives as well

• Kenny Rogers appearing to tweak his back
• Magglio Ordonez looking out of sync and swinging at the first pitch in his first two at-bats
• Curtis Granderson striking out 3 times

Fortunately there was no mention of negative number 1 in the post game reports, and I don’t anticipate items 2 and 3 being an ongoing problem.

Opening Day is over. The Tigers got the win. And it makes me happy.

In other news, according to Tom Gage’s Blog (permalink not working) Franklyn German was claimed by the Florida Marlins. I’m slightly surprised that anyone would claim German because he needs to be kept on the Major League roster. Also claimed was Rob Bowen by the Padres, who the Tigers claimed from the Twins last week.