It Begins!

The Tigers opened the season on Monday with an 8-4 win over Greinke's Royals. Greinke himself was excellent (6.0 IP 6H 1 ER 1 BB 4 K) but lost his chance at a decision when KC's beleaguered bullpen surrendered 6 runs in the 7th. The bullpen blowing the lead for Greinke is going to be a common theme throughout the season. They are so bad that he could post a sub 2.20 ERA again and possibly finish with even less than 16 wins.

Whenever I watch the Royals play I am utterly flummoxed that everyone on the team minus Soria, Butler and Greinke even plays major league baseball. It is going to be an ugly, ugly year for them.

On the Tigers side of things, Verlander didn't pitch great (5.0 IP 6 H 4 ER 1 BB 6 K) but kept the Tigers in the game. Not a whole lot for me to comment on there - I'm not worried about Verlander at all (he started his eventual 3rd place in AL Cy Young voting campaign last year kinda shaky as well) and he'll be fine. When Verlander handed the ball off to the bullpen they responded well and mostly cruised until a little bit of trouble in the 9th that Valverde was able to battle out of. Zumaya was back to his fireballing self and said after the game that he felt great and Ryan Perry, Phil Coke and brand new closer Jose Valverde all performed admirably. I'm still kinda dubious about surrendering a first round pick for Valverde... but we'll see.

Besides the bullpen, the other positive notes for the team were how two of the new guys played. Johnny Damon went 2/5 with a double, 2 RBI and 2 runs scored while Austin Jackson had a double, an RBI and gunned down Jason Kendall at home to save a run in the 7th. Leyland called Jackson's outfield assist the "play of the game". It is nice to see two new guys who will play key roles at the top of the order for the Tigers perform well in the season opener and hopefully it is a forecast for things to come. The only issue I have is that Jackson struck out twice, which he really needs to avoid to keep his OBP up. We don't need Granderson 2.0 in the leadoff slot.

The Tigers resume their series against the Royals tonight with newly acquired SP Max Scherzer taking the mound against former first-overall pick (and perennial disappointment) Luke Hochevar. I'd like to see Miggy blast this chump and begin his ascent towards 2010 AL MVP. Then on Thursday the D-Train takes the mound in what should be an... interesting... start. The countdown timer to Galarraga getting recalled from Toledo is going to begin at approximately 2:10 Eastern on Thursday afternoon. BTW why the fuck is Porcello behind Willis in the rotation? I can understand trying to protect the youngest guy on the staff, but do we really need extra starts for Dontrelle? Seriously, a good spring training notwithstanding, Dontrelle blows.