Opening Day! Game 1: Royals at Tigers

KANSAS CITY

CF D. DeJesus
2B M. Grudzielanek
3B A. Gordon
RF J. Guillen
DH B. Butler
LF M. Teahen
1B R. Gload
C J. Buck
SS T. Pena, Jr.

DETROIT

SS E. Renteria
2B P. Polanco
DH G. Sheffield
RF M. Ordonez
3B M. Cabrera
1B C. Guillen
C I. Rodriguez
LF J. Jones
CF B. Inge

at least 12 games against the royals this year to take the division

maybe more

no pressure, right

Guillen looked like a first time first baseman, standing right in the baseline as Grudzielanek was charging at him. Remember the footwork, Carlos.

Bit of a generous outside corner for Verlander against Alex Gordon?

Nice enough start for the Tigers.

I like the new SBNation digs for gameday.

(O's fan living in Michigan)

Did anyone else find it peculiar that Rod said during Cabrera's first Tiger AB, "He's never really played in front of a crowd like this."

How about the World Series, ROD?

And it's not Cabrera wouldn't have played in front of crowds like that on the road.

Jose Guillen might attack you if you look at him the wrong way, but the dude has a gun for an arm.

Is there another hitter in the Tigers lineup that works a walk, after falling behind 0-2?

The Tigers could've gotten more than one run out of that situation. Meche did a good job there, all things considered.

Every fly ball off a Tiger's bat looks like a home run still.

Until the camera switched to the outfield

May that be the first of many, many home runs for Miguel Cabrera as a Detroit Tiger!

Hey, Mario just stole my line!

Who writes our material?

It' still spring training for commenters.

El Palo Grande has arrived

Two straight long fly balls off Meche.

He hasn't looked too good today.

Gordon teed off on that. Of course, Verlander served it up right down the middle.

So much for the shutout!

Hey guys,

I'm an O's fan just visiting. I own Miggy on my fantasy team and I seem to have missed Leyland's justification for putting him 5th in the lineup. Why not 3rd or 4th? The last couple innings seem to have proved my point. Can anyone help?

Thanks!

First of all, thanks for stopping by to chime in. We have plenty of room.

I think Leyland's reasoning was that Cabrera would get a bunch of RBI opportunities with Sheffield and Ordonez getting on base in front of him.

Plus, Sheff is better at making pitchers work and taking some walks at the #3 spot in the lineup.

let's hope Grilli thinks this is a road game

I think this could actually be an ideal debut for the bullpen. (I hope I don't eat those words in a couple of batters.)

Nothing would settle all the angst down like having the relievers come in and do exactly what they're supposed to do, in progression.

I'll be waving at airplanes.

I should've kept that thought to myself.

Yeah

Yeah, I can see that reasoning...if the stats backed it up. Cabrera's OBP is better than Sheff's the last two seasons since Sheff is in his decline and Cabs is still getting better. Ordonez had a better OBP last year, but I hope we all recognize that was an outlier and he'll be regressing to his career norms this year. And Cabs is hitting for better power than both of them.

So why place your best hitter (for both power and for OBP) 5th in the order, missing out on ABs over the course of the season? If you want another big bat in front of him, at least move him up to 4th.

Tomorrow's Freep will have a Drew Sharp column about the "bullpen woes"

Let's start with a walk for Sheff.

Hey, I'd like to see Cabrera third myself, but running PECOTA projections through David Pinto's lineup analyzer showed it really didn't matter where Sheffield and Cabrera batted. Here's the numbers it came up with:

http://www.detroittigersweblog.com/2008/02/one-lineup-question-answered/

Bullpen better keep this lead where it's at right now.

The Tigers should've signed Brett Tomko for their bullpen.

We see Inge's first mistake in centerfield. Can't fault a guy's effort, but he shouldn't have dived for that ball.

Inge's desire to try to make the impossible play would pop up like that.

Your bullepen > Our bullpen
Our lineup > Your lineup.

So who wins?

get it done

Is that 4 now?

To extras we go

if he comes in in the 7th, is Guillen's HR the winning run?

wow. That leap catch of his. did his heart or our hearts jump more?

GOT EM!

Looks like it'll be up to the offense.

Did I miss anything? :-)

But KC scored a run right after on a hit that landed right in front of Inge.

Thank you, I'll be here all week!

Go rookie!

Detroit's going to love this kid.

They have to give you a microphone, Kurt.

I suppose it's better than if Inge had struck out. But Clete was already on second.

That sure turned out to be a crappy game.

Hell of a play by Gordon there.

There goes the 162-0 season

Thanks, you guys, for chiming in on the Game Thread. If the rest of the season goes like this (the thread, not the game result), we could have a lot of fun here.