PREGAME: Ah, a return to Kansas City where the Tigers began their out-of-nowhere season last year with a 2 game sweep to start the season, and clinched a playoff spot with a 3 game sweep in September.

The Tigers will throw Justin Verlander against the Royals. Verlander kind of feasted on Royals last year, allowing only 2 extra base hits and 2 runs in 21 innings. Of course, the 2006 ROY didn’t have to deal with 2007 ROY preseason candidate Alex Gordon.

The Tigers will face their first southpaw in Jorge De La Rosa. De La Rosa only has 144IP in his career and he has nearly as many walks (106) as strikeouts (114). The newly patient Tigers could exploit this number, espeically on a bitter cold night where gripping the ball could be a challenge.

Game Time 8:10

POSTGAME Enough with the excuses about wind in the outfield. Craig Monroe had his second ball this season drop in front of him. Magglio Ordonez screwed up 2 plays in the outfield, one was on the ground so I don’t think the wind impacted it. Plus, the Tigers hit pretty much every ball in the air and the Royals didn’t have a problem with it.

Other comments:

• Jose Mesa wasn’t fooling anyone, and the ball was up. The results speak for themselves. Monroe’s gaffe allowing the second run wasn’t Mesa’s fault, but the damage had already been done. He was pretty bad in spring training allowing 23 baserunners in 13 1/3 innings. I wonder how many chances he’ll be given.
• Verlander looked great early on, but then the control completely disappeared. The five walks didn’t cost him, except for shortening his outing.
• Craig Monroe’s double was only the Tigers 4th extra base hit.
• Two very nice plays from Brandon Inge. He needed some help from Casey on his first throw, but it was a heck of a play to come up with it in the first place.
• Very nice first outing for Wil Ledezma coming in to bail out Mesa and only allowing a walk in 1 2/3.

Royals 3, Tigers 1

Game Postponed: The Tigers called this one early. It will be made up on September 10th at 7:05pm

PREGAME: Ah, the rubber match. Detroit evened the series at one game apiece yesterday (barely) and now they’ll try and take the deciding game as well.

The Tigers will send out American League Rookie of the Year Justin Verlander. Verlander had some ups and downs this spring. Due to the prolonged season, he didn’t start throwing until spring training and it was clear that he was a little behind the curve in terms of mechanics. He’d look great, then implode for an inning or two. But he closed out the spring very strong and looks to be ready to go.

He’ll face left-hander Gustavo Chacin which means we will likely see Pudge Rodriguez leading off. As long as someone is on base for Gary Sheffield it should be okay. Sheffield has taken Chacin deep 3 times in 15 at-bats.

Game Time 1:05pm

PREGAME: We’ll see if this one gets played or not. The weather forecast is February-esque, so the ring ceremony might look a little odd with the recipients wearing winter gloves. It is almost a guarantee we’ll see the Placido Polanco hoody though.

If they play it, Nate Robertson will be on the hill for Detroit. Robertson owns Reed Johnson, but has had some ups and downs against the rest of the lineup. He doesn’t want to pitch to Frank Thomas (5 walks in 20 plate appearances). He shouldn’t pitch to Aaron Hill who posts and 8 for 10 line.

Sean Casey looks to be the only Tiger excited to face AJ Burnett. While the current roster doesn’t have many at-bats against Burnett, only Casey has demonstrated success going 13 for 23 (with a triple?!).

Game Time 1:05pm

POSTGAME: Just got back, and my fingers are still thawing. Quite the emotional swing in this game to say the least.

Nate Robertson never had a 1-2-3 inning, and like Rodney on Opening Day he seemed to struggle to put hitters away. He threw 104 pitches in 5 2/3 innings and 47 were balls. To his credit though, he kept the ball down with the exception of the Hill homer. As we saw in the 8th inning, anything in the air could have been trouble.

Jason Grilli was only marginally responsible for the 7 runs in the 8th inning. He did fall behind too often, but he induced enough weak swings to get out of the inning with minimal damage. Some wind, some bad luck, and some really bad defense by Ordonez were the big culprits.

Other thoughts:

• Ordonez defense almost soiled a solid day at the plate where he reached base 4 times.
• Really, really bad game today for Brandon Inge. He fanned his first 3 times up, and nearly made 2 errors on very routine balls where his infield mates bailed him out.
• Curtis Granderson now has all 3 of the team’s extra base hits.
• Despite his big day with the bat, if Toronto had scored another run we might be looking at a couple baserunning decisions while Granderson was on 3rd after his triple. First, he failed to tag on a shallow fly that required a diving catch in rightfield. Then, with Ordonez at-bat he had a chance to score on a wild pitch. I don’t know if it was Granderson or Gene Lamont, who seems to be especially cautious in the first 2 games. When in doubt he’s held runners at 3rd in these first 2 games.
• When Craig Monroe struck out in the 2nd inning it was his 5th K in 5 games. But he actually bounced back nicely. He drew a bases loaded walk, hit a sharp grounder to short, and lined out to right field in subsequent at-bats.

I took some pictures, and will post those later tonight.

Final Score: Detroit (1-1) 10, Toronto (1-1) 9

Super POSTGAME: So I took my camera and had decent seats. Mind you I’m not a photographer, and I don’t have a top of the line camera, but I thought I’d share a couple of the better ones anyways. You can find the set from today’s game here.

I also flipped the camera to video mode to capture Kenny Rogers getting his ring. I guess he got to the park just in time. He received a warm welcome, as did all the players, but it was too bad the weather was so awful. It really kept the crowd down.

PREGAME: The return of the game posts, also known as “it’s about time baseball season is back.” If you’re new to the site, this is where we discuss the game at hand.

The Tigers will send out Jeremy Bonderman. Bonderman is expected by many (myself included) to make a big leap this year. He’ll get his first chance against a very formidable offense, on a pretty big stage. He has been highly effective against most of the Blue Jays with the exception of Vernon Wells. Wells is 5 for 12 with a couple doubles and a couple walks. Fortunately, Bonderman’s nemesis Matt Stairs (10 for 21, 3 walks, 3 homers) will not be in the lineup today.

The Tigers will be facing perhaps the best right hander in the American League in Roy Halladay. Current Tigers have had very little success against Halladay with a combined 7 extra base hits. Four of those belong to Pudge Rodriguez is is 10 for 18 off of Halladay.

Game Time is 1:05pm with Pennant Raising ceremonies and booing of Governor Jennifer Granholm and Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick set to begin at 12:30. The game can be seen Fox 2 and FSN Detroit and heard on 1270 WXYT.

As a reminder on commenting rules, it is basically 1. Don’t swear, 2. Be nice, 3. Don’t be a jerk
Fangraphs will have live win probability calculations all season long (for more on WPA see here).

Blue Jays Lineup

1. LF Reed Johnson
2. 1B Lyle Overbay
3. CF Vernon Wells
4. DH Frank Thomas
5. 3B Troy Glaus
6. RF Alex Rios
7. C Gregg Zaun
8. 2B Aaron Hill
9. SS Royce Clayton

Tigers Lineup

1. CF Curtis Granderson
2. 2B Placido Polanco
3. DH Gary Sheffield
4. SS Carlos Guillen
5. RF Magglio Ordonez
6. C Ivan Rodriguez
7. 1B Sean Casey
8. LF Craig Monroe
9. 3B Brandon Inge

POSTGAME:
Well, they came up a little short today on a rough first inning by Bonderman, and a rough last inning by Fernando Rodney. What was really impressive is that threats were very limited in between. The loss is far from devastating, but getting a solid outing from your starter and putting 3 up on Roy Halladay normally gives you a good chance to win (as my buddy Russ said on the way home). To let it get away is a little disappointing.

Because I was too giddy to sleep last night, and worn out by the day, just some bulleted thoughts on the game:

• Carlos Guillen looked simply amazing defensively. Sitting in leftfield I didn’t have a great view of everything going on today, but I did have Guillen in my sights and it was something to see.
• I was a little surprised to see that after his rough first inning, Bonderman was actually much more efficient that Halladay. A lot of the credit goes to the Tiger hitters who didn’t offer at a first pitch until Sheffield’s at-bat the second time through. In fact, the first 8 hitters all took the first 2 pitches.
• And along those lines the 2 strike approaches were sound. Granderson fell behind with 2 strikes in his first AB before drawing a couple balls and ripping a single. Carlos Guillen later fell behind 1-2, fouled off 2 pitches, and hit a line drive deep to right that was hauled in by Rios.
• The Tigers actually had a few well hit balls, 2 by Guillen and 2 by Sheffield, that just didn’t fall. Sometimes that’s the way it goes. By the same token, the Blue Jays were just a couple feet short of 2 home runs as well.
• Craig Monroe, not a good day at-bat
• Strange outing for Fernando Rodney today. He was consistently getting ahead (6 of the 7 batters he faced he got 1st pitch strikes), yet couldn’t close out the at-bat. He was ahead 0-2 to both Frank Thomas and Troy Glaus before both reached base.
• One more note on Rodney, it was last year I believe that Chuck Hernandez was trying to limit the number of change-ups that Rodney through, to get him to concentrate more on his fastball. In the Glaus at-bat he threw him 3 straight changes. Maybe it is something to address again?