Well that was a nice start to the season. The Tigers went up against the defending Cy Young winner and managed a win. The offense came through. The bullpen came through. The new guys each got a chance to make a favorable first impression. All in all a good day in Kansas City.

Continue reading Game 2010.001: Post Game →

PREGAME: The Home Opener is finally upon us. All of the regular traditions will be in place. People will find their regular watering holes or tailgate spots. Therer will be a ceremonial first pitch. Four F-15s will buzz the park once the DSO completes the National Anthem. The traditional Opening Day fish fry will take place at various Big League Grills in the stadium. You know, the regular stuff.

The weather looks like it will cooperate and stay dry and not too cold.

As for the game, it will be Armando Galarraga for the Tigers earning the Home Opener nod after his impressive debut year in 2008. He’ll take on Kris Benson and the undefeated Texas Rangers. Benson hasn’t pitched since 2006, so who knows what will happen.

Have a great day everyone. I’ll be down at Casey’s early so stop by and say hi.

Game Time 1:05

POSTGAME: Well that was some kind of fun. It was a glorious day weather-wise, and the boys represented the English D well with a thorough thumping of the Rangers.

It’s been a full day, and a long week with 3 games in two cities for me, so we’ll keep this short.

• Armando Galarraga stepped up big today. I’m expecting regression from him due to his BABIP being at unsustainable levels. But, he could always pitch his peripherals “into” his ERA. That’s something we saw as the year wore on last year, and with 8 K’s and 1 walk today that certainly is getting off on the right foot.
• Miguel Cabrera hits the ball hard. Sometimes it has sufficient lift to carry the fence. Sometimes it lacks the lift and instead dents the fence. But for 5 straight games now he is hitting bullets.
• Ryan Perry struggled with control today. It was about the only downside on the field.
• Brandon Inge made an awesome play going back on a pop-fly. The funny thing is my buddy Russ had mentioned the pitch before that Carlos Guillen looked to be playing too deep. Inge took care of that though.
• I haven’t experienced Opening Days other places, but I truly believe that it just has to mean more in Detroit than most places. It may not be the best, and other cities like St. Louis and Cincinnati truly appreciate it also. But it completely changes the city for one wonderful day every April.

PREGAME: Finally. Months 6 months of despair over last year’s debacle are washed away. Two months of roster speculation can be forgotten (six Tigers are experiencing their first opening day). It’s finally time to play ball. Tonight’s pitching match-up is a dandy, as most opening day match-ups are.

The Tigers will try to scratch out a couple runs against Roy Halladay. The Tigers, like most teams, struggle against Halladay. Granderson is 4 for 10 lifetime and Polanco is 5 for 11. And the success ends there.

Verlander has only made one start in his career against the Jays and he got knockeed around to the tune of 6 runs in 4.1 innings. Fortunately we can claim “sample size!” and dismiss this information.

Tonight’s lineup is:

1. Granderson, CF
2. Polanco, 2B
3. Ordonez, RF
4. Cabrera, 1B
5. Guillen, DH
6. Laird, C
7. Inge, 3B
8. Everett, SS
9. Anderson, LF

Yes, Josh Anderson gets the Opening Day start over Marcus Thames essentially as Jim Leyland is trying to save Guillen’s hamstrings – on the first day of the season.

Detroit vs. Toronto – April 6, 2009 | MLB.com: Gameday

Game Time 7:15 (bummed about the lack of high definition for this game though)

Oh yeah, there is another big game tonight. We’ll see how the chatter goes come 9:00pm. Good luck MSU fans.

POSTGAME: For everyone who is ready to say “same old Tigers” not so fast. The bullpen didn’t blow a lead. There. Take that. I’m not saying the bullpen was good, but they didn’t cost the game. That would largely fall on the shoulders of Justin Verlander.

Verlander had nice velocity (he was at 97 the first couple innings), a curve ball that buckled some knees, but command was inconsistent. And the Blue Jays had not trouble with any of it as they banged out 6 extra base hits.

Aside from the shellacking, the other damaging part of Verlander’s outing was that he didn’t even make it through the 4th inning. So Leyland turned to Bonine to mop-up, and subsequently Nate Robertson. Robertson actually pitched well retiring the side with 2 K’s on 9 pitches. My suspicion for Robertson being lifted was that Leyland didn’t want to burn both long guys on the same night.

Juan Rincon had a hard time finding the strike zone, but those runs really had little impact.

The good news is that the offense plated 5 runs off of Roy Halladay, including 2 homers. Curtis Granderson looked good, as did the middle of the order. And of course Brandon Inge with an opposite field homer.

Yes, it’s only April and there will be losses, but the Tigers let one get away today. The offense created opportunities, and the pitching was decent enough. But the pieces just didn’t come together. I’m not making conclusions based on what I saw today, but I did observe some stuff while sitting behind the left field foul pole.

• The clouds covered up the flyover. You could hear it, but not see it. But, since that was the only weather related calamity of the day I can let it slide. It was otherwise quite comfortable.
• Verlander looked quite sharp after the first innings. It took him 20 pitches to get through that first frame, and less than that to get through the next 3. I’ll be honest, I can’t judge stuff when I’m sitting in the outfield (and really even when I’m sitting other places), but the Royals looked uncomfortable.
• The bullpen as a whole was OK. There’s no way you could reasonably expect Jason Grilli, or most other pitchers, to hold a one run lead with nobody out and runners at the corners. One of the runs was bound to score. Of course limiting to one run should have been within the realm of possibility.
• I know he takes the loss, but I’m impressed with Denny Bautista. After a cheap ground ball hit it appeared he was going to unravel when he through 3 straight balls to Alex Gordon. But then he fired back to back strikes that tickled 101mph on the scoreboard gun leading to back to back strikeouts. I was actually hoping that Leyland would take him out after that inning where he should have been brimming with confidence.
• Lead-off walks led to costly runs in two different innings. Once for Bautista and once for Verlander.
• Todd Jones with a 1-2-3 inning in a non-save situation. That was nice.
• The new guys – Jones/Cabrera/Renteria – combined for 7 strikeouts on the day. Miguel Cabrera had a homer, which is cool. At least that monkey is off his back right away.
• Clete Thomas should be happy tonight. He makes his big league debut and doubles in his first at-bat.
• The crowd seemed kind of dead today, and the stadium never really filled in all the way. Part of that may have been people in lines, and part of it may have been people staying at the bars rather than getting misted on (which it didn’t). The place only really came alive when Brandon Inge threw the bullet from the outfield.
• Speaking of Inge, very nice game today. The throw was obvious, but he hit a couple balls well and took a walk. And on the diving play, he wasn’t close, but I also don’t know if he’s able to cut that off regardless – at least from my vantage point it didn’t seem a given.
• And the other play in question, the ground ball in the hole between Renteria and Cabrera, I don’t know that he’s able to make that throw regardless. The Royals had some well placed hits (including the game winner). What are ya gonna do.

And that’s that. I hate the day after opening day.