Morning Prowl: Improved Defense, Everett vs. Santiago, Ugie in Seattle, and SBN Goes Green and White

  A year after noting that Justin Verlander had lost velocity on his fastball, Fangraphs' Dave Cameron revisits the scene and finds that Verlander has his groove back.  Don't let the high ERA fool you.

  The Tigers' offseason emphasis on improving their defense has paid major dividends so far this season, according to Billfer.

  Should Adam Everett be the starting shortstop once he recovers from the flu?  Scott Warheit thinks Ramon Santiago should keep the job.

  Maybe Kurt was swept up a bit by the whole 4/20 thing yesterday (great day for an off-day, man...), but he's high on this Tigers team.  4/20 or not, this is a much more fun team to watch right now.

(By the way, I had no idea what 4/20 was all about until my friend A. explained it to me on Sunday night.  That has to be a sign of me getting old.) 

  Were there Ugueth Urbina sightings in Seattle this weekend?  Samara and her investigative camera was on the scene in several Emerald City locations, also capturing an Ugie vs. Otter confrontation.

  I'm sure many of us would rather see Magglio Ordonez jack a few more balls into the seats, but Jason Beck wrote an interesting article about Maggs's emphasis on hitting the ball to right field in batting practice.

  Jim Hawkins has a funny story about the side soft drink business that Mark Fidrych and Willie Horton once ran in the Tigers' clubhouse.

  It's only two weeks into the season, but can we already give the Worst Headline of the Year Award to this little nugget in today's Freep?

  All of the Spartans in the BYB-borhood will probably want to know that SB Nation now has a Michigan State blog.  The Only Colors will be run by the crew from Spartans Weblog, and have all of your MSU needs covered.  Stop over and say hello.

You can find SBN's Michigan sports blogs now listed in our left-hand sidebar (it's there somewhere), under the heading "SBN Michigan."