Ah, yes.  So that's why Denny Bautista suddenly couldn't get through an outing without walking a batter.  His shoulder was giving him problems. 

The Detroit Tigers put Bautista on the 15-day disabled list for shoulder tendonitis a day after leaving Friday night's game in the eighth inning, unable to clean up the mess he made.  Before he felt pain in the shoulder and was taken out, Bautista had given up three runs on four hits, with one walk. 

I realize it was unfair of me to say, but in watching the game on TV at a bar without any sound, it almost appeared as if Bautista had enough of the Twins smacking him around and wanted out.  But if his shoulder was barking, maybe that helps explain why he was having so much trouble. 

The tendonitis doesn't appear all that serious, as the Tigers' training staff thinks Bautista will recover with medication and rest (though I'm sure they had similar hopes for Fernando Rodney in the spring), but as was the case with Dontrelle Willis' injury, this might give a struggling pitcher an opportunity to refine his technique and regain his control.  Jim Leyland sounds like a manager who'd grown tired of watching Bautista trying to figure those things out at the major league level.

"I really like Bautista.  I'm not down on Bautista at all, but the fact of the matter is simple.  If you're going to throw a bunch of pitches every time you go out there for an outing and then you can't pitch for two or three days, then you're not worth much."

Somewhere in Colorado, maybe Jason Grilli is smiling at the notion that the Tigers have a bullpen spot to fill so soon after trading him.  Or maybe he's not smiling, since he already seems to be doing what he does best for his new team, having given up two runs on three hits and a walk in just one inning for the Rockies last night.  He's your problem now, Denver. 

With Bautista going to the DL, the Tigers called up Freddy Dolsi from Double-A Erie, who'd been rising fast through the organization, jumping from Lakeland to the Seawolves just last week.  In 12 games (3/4 of those with the Flying Tigers), Dolsi posted a 4.35 ERA with 12 strikeouts (and four walks) in 10 1/3 innings.

I know Jason Grilli was an easy punching bag during his time with the Detroit Tigers.  And sometimes, it was justifiable.  There were several instances where the guy was flat-out terrible.  But he also probably got kind of a bad rap, and never really quite as awful as many Tigers fans (myself included) thought he was.  His final 2008 stats with Detroit are an 0-1 record and 3.29 ERA, with 10 strikeouts and 12 hits allowed in 13 2/3 innings.

Having said all that, one of Detroit sports' great unsolved mysteries was how Grilli managed to keep a spot on the Tigers' major league roster.  We didn't call him "Gas Can" around here because we thought he was a swell guy.  But that mystery is now left for the fans of the Colorado Rockies to deal with. 

Grilli was traded this afternoon to the Rockies for minor league reliever Zach Simons.  Simons is pitching in Single-A this season, learning his craft with a team that has one of the great mascots in the country, the Modesto Nuts.  He's appeared in seven games so far this season, posting a 1-0 record and 2.70 ERA, with 14 strikeouts in 13 1/3 innings.

The Tigers attempted to trade Grilli to Colorado before, trying to get Clint Barmes in exchange last August.  The Rockies turned down that deal, but must have maintained interest in Grilli - who, in fairness, does have a good arm - since then.

So who takes Grilli's spot?  It was only a matter of time before Francisco Cruceta joined the Tigers, and he'll do so tomorrow.  Besides the fact that the bullpen needs any help it can get, and that Cruceta was likely to make the big league roster out of Spring Training had he not been restricted from entering the country due to visa problems, the man was blowing hitters away in Triple-A.  15 strikeouts in seven innings.  Just two hits and one run allowed.

Other than the question of when Cruceta would arrive, the natural follow-up query was who would get squeezed off the roster to make room for him?  The obvious answer looked to be Zach Miner, given his struggles this season and his remaining minor league option.  But Grilli being traded presumably grants him a stay of execution.

I suppose I can forget selling any of these t-shirts, eh?

This game initially had major potential for disaster.  Dontrelle Willis walked the first two batters he faced, and added injury to indignity when his right foot slipped on the rain-slicked pitching mound as he was making a throw, resulting in what's been diagnosed as a hyper-extended right knee.  Willis left the game without getting an out, which meant that the bullpen that's been making women and children cry over the past nine games had to cover the entire game. 

And that's really the story of tonight's win.  We're all too eager to throw tomatoes at the bullpen when they're terrible, so when those relievers do a good job, we should stand up and clap.  Four relievers pitched nine innings and gave up only four hits to a White Sox lineup that crushed the ball last weekend in Detroit.

Aquilino Lopez was thrown into an extremely difficult situation, as a short reliever who simply had to give the team several innings.  And for just the second time in his career, Lopez pitched four of them.  Jason Grilli - the last guy any Tigers fan presumably wants to see on the mound right now - took over for Lopez and pitched three hitless innings of his own.  He started off shaky, hitting one batter and walking another, but got every hitter out from there.  Finally, in a save situation, Detroit's bullpen was able to progress from set-up man to closer.  Denny Bautista threw a scoreless eighth inning, capped off by Clete Thomas throwing Jermaine Dye (who clearly underestimated the young man in left field) out at second base.  And really, can you ever not appreciate Todd Jones pitching a 1-2-3 ninth inning?

The night almost got even uglier when both Miguel Cabrera and Carlos Guillen pulled up on the bases, feeling a twinge in their surely cold-stiffened legs.  Trainer Kevin Rand may have been on the field more than Jim Leyland tonight.  But neither player left the game, and the Tigers managed to end it before anything worse could happen.

But tonight was all about the bullpen, and this time for the right reasons.  A tip of the cap and a slow clap go to the relievers who gave the team exactly what was needed.

Today, the Boston Red Sox return to Fenway Park as defending World Series champions, opening the home portion of their schedule against the Detroit Tigers. With this impending clash of presumed American League titans (though both teams come into this series limping a bit), we needed some thoughts from the opposing side.

The latest edition of "Blogging With the Enemy" thus features a brief chat with Dan Lamothe, who writes Red Sox Monster for MassLive.com.  I also answered five of his questions about the Tigers, which you can read here.

BYB:  Has the trip to Japan had a major effect on the Red Sox so far, in your opinion?  Are they still trying to get their bearings or have they adjusted back to their regular routine now?  (And at what point does that stop becoming a topic of discussion?)

RSM:  Detroit fans will probably roll their eyes, but you can't argue that the circus that was the Red Sox' trip to Japan had no effect.  In fact, I'm like many other Sox fans in that I have already given them a free pass for the weekend debacle in Toronto, since two of the games were close and there's way more to that series than a simple, "Oh, they were tired."  (Like Frank Thomas all of sudden looking 25 again... did that really happen?)

With that said, I think the point for excuses has pretty much run its course.  Daisuke Matsuzaka and Jon Lester both had great starts last week, and since they were the two Sox to get starts in Tokyo, they'd figure to be the pitchers the most directly affected.  A return to Boston is well overdue, though, and if reliving the 2007 championship run doesn't help situational hitting and some of the other things that have hurt Boston so far... well, pass the salt, please.  I'll eat my oldest, gnarliest Red Sox hat.

BYB:  How do you see the Coco Crisp-Jacoby Ellsbury center field logjam eventually resolving itself?  Will the Red Sox eventually go with Ellsbury, regardless of how Crisp plays?  Or is trading Crisp just too much of an inevitability?

RSM:  The logjam isn't looking like much of a logjam at all, actually.  Barring a slump of bang-your-head-on-the-desk proportions, the job is Ellsbury's -- now, and hopefully for 10 more seasons.  Now, if only he can keep cooking with the same mojo he had over the weekend, when he hit his first home run of the season off Roy Halladay.

As for Crisp, he's already had a shot to make things difficult, since J.D. Drew already missed a handful of starts.  He's hitting .235, and he only has one good game to speak of with the bat (2 for 5 on April 2).  That's hardly making things difficult on Terry Francona.

BYB:  Coming into the season or looking at the games that have been played so far, what is your biggest concern about Boston's roster?  Could middle relief be a problem, or am I projecting my issues with the Tigers onto this question?

Coming into the season, my biggest worry was how the young starters, Jon Lester and Clay Buchholz, would fare.  That still holds true, although Lester has been somewhere between good and excellent so far.  The Sox also need Josh Beckett to be his usual filthy, ornery self on the mound.  Obviously, he's our Justin Verlander -- just a bit better and without the cartoony facial hair.

BYB:  What's the estimated time of arrival for Bartolo Colon to get the call up from Pawtucket?  Are there big hopes from Red Sox Nation or is any contribution from Colon going to be considered gravy?

Did you just use Bartolo Colon and gravy in the same breath?  If so, good job by you, sir.

In all seriousness, though, there are very few Sox fans who aren't somewhat excited about the possibilities, especially considering Colon's progress had been really good until yesterday.

Since the Sox can't count on Curt Schilling anymore and Lester and Buchholz are young enough where they will have restrictions imposed on their innings pitched this season, having a veteran on the cheap in camp with a huge upside can't be a bad thing.  Much like biscuits and gravy, actually.

BYB:  Since I mentioned middle relief earlier, what are the chances of sending that schoolgirl-attacking hawk after Jason Grilli while the Tigers visit Fenway Park this week?  Or do his age and lack of a Yankee-soundalike name protect him from this particular bird of prey?

RSM:  The Fenway Hawk cannot be stopped; you can only hope to contain him.  Jason Grilli, say your prayers.

Thanks to Dan for getting back to me on relatively short notice (due to my procrastination).  Much as we hope the Tigers pound the Red Sox over the next three games, I aspire to crush Dan in the Babes Love Baseball AAA fantasy league we're both competing in.  As with the Tigers so far, however, it's not looking good for me.

I've already written that Jim Leyland's use of his bullpen has baffled me so far this season.  I don't understand bringing Zach Miner into a tied ballgame in the sixth inning, for example.  But in fairness to Leyland, perhaps, today's game was a painful example of what the injuries to Joel Zumaya and Fernando Rodney have wrought upon the late-inning relievers.  If those two - or even one of them - were healthy, I don't think we would've seen Jason Grilli in the seventh inning today.  Unfortunately, we did.  And Grilli proceeded to fulfill Tigers fans' worst fears.

There's really no kind way to put this.  (Though I'll try to be more delicate than I was when sending a text message to Mike McClary after Grilli left the game.  If my thumbs had the strength, there would've been many more expletives.)  Grilli was a total gas can today.  He flat-out stunk.

If a tied ballgame were a carton of eggs handed to Grilli, he not only would've dropped the eggs on the floor, shattering the shells, and pooling yolk and white all over your kitchen tile.  But he would've then slipped on the viscous puddle, gone feet-first into the air, came crashing back down ass-first into the sticky, gooey mess, getting it all over his clothes, spreading and spraying the now-inedible sludge across the floor and onto the walls. 

Even worse, Grilli would've pulled the person who was trying to help him up down to the floor with him, causing the innocent to also fall injuriously, soil his or her clothing, and causing a further spread of slop around the room.  And you know what?  Grilli might not have even cleaned up the mess, leaving all that broken egg to cause a salmonella outbreak in your household.  And all he was supposed to do was put the damn eggs in the refrigerator.

Though I might be guilty of a little embellishment, that's essentially what Grilli did in the seventh inning today.  Without recording a single out, he gave up a double, a single, and a home run.  And here's the part that might really cause your dinner to reflux up on you: all that havoc occurred on just three pitches.

The carnage looked as if it would be even worse when Grilli served up singles to the next two batters, and then advanced them by throwing a wild pitch to Juan Uribe.  But a base-running brain cramp by Carlos Quentin trying to score another run allowed the Tigers to turn a double play, stanch the bleeding, and throw Grilli a life preserver.  (Was that just two different metaphors in one sentence?  Hey, that's how bad things went in this inning.)  After the smoke cleared (that's three metaphors), the Tigers were three runs down and the game was essentially over.

Grilli isn't the only - though he's the most obvious - reason why Detroit lost this game.  Nate Robertson wasn't very good, giving up five runs on a day when his lineup finally managed to generate some offense.  But just as the Tigers began to push some runs across the plate and perhaps get this machine in motion, the pitching couldn't hold it together.  And that's the kind of stretch this team is in right now, the kind every team goes through at some point.  When they pitch well, the bats are cold.  When the batters finally heat up (led by the newest sensation sweeping Tigers Nation, Clete Thomas), the pitching melts down. 

Does it all seem worse because it's at the very beginning of a season for which expectations were extremely high?  Almost certainly.  Is it still too early to panic?  Most definitely.

First of all, thanks to everyone who posted comments in the first Game Thread of the season.  I know we have a long (long) way to go before we catch up to several of the other SB Nation communities out there.  (Look at what Royals Review did today.)  But for the fledgling BYB brigade, this was a fantastic start.  Hopefully, it wasn't just the dazzle of Opening Day that brought everyone out.  If we keep this up and build on the discussion, we're going to have a lot of fun around here this season.

The weather favored the Tigers today.  Not only didn't it rain on the Opening Day Comerica Park crowd, but a national audience to see this game as the Jays-Yankees opener from Yankee Stadium was rained out, and ESPN switched over to Royals-Tigers.  Unfortunately for Detroit, the home team didn't show off that winning growl this afternoon, despite an excellent opportunity to tie the game (and perhaps win) in the 11th inning.

Oh No - The Bullpen:

The best thing for the Tigers' bullpen in the first game of the season would've been to protect a lead, come out in succession - Zach Miner in the 7th, Denny Bautista in the 8th, Todd Jones in the 9th - and give everyone some assurance about the late-inning relief.  The bullpen was indeed handed a lead, but couldn't hold onto it.  In fairness, Jason Grilli came into a difficult situation in the 7th, with runners on first and third and no outs.  (Of course, he didn't have to serve up that fat a pitch to John Buck...)  After Bobby Seay got his designated left-handed hitter out, Aquilino Lopez made a decent pitch to Mark Grudzielanek, who smoked it to the opposite field.

Maybe you could second-guess Jim Leyland's choice of relievers in that 7th inning, but in a situation where the Tigers were likely to give up a run, maybe he wanted to see if he could get away with saving his best set-up men for late in the game.  If he had to do it all over again, however, I wonder if Leyland would've brought in Miner or Bautista for that situation.

He Giveth and Taketh Away:

We saw some of the best and maybe the worst of Brandon Inge in center field today.  The Royals threatened to blow the game open in the 8th when Inge dove for a Mark Teahen drive into the left-center gap.  It's hard to fault a guy for making an all-out effort like that, but when it comes to diving for a ball, you have to pick and choose your spots carefully.  Maybe Inge thought he had a chance to make the catch, but on TV, that ball looked three to four feet beyond his reach.  Better to let the ball drop and keep the batter to a single than to give up extra bases trying to make an impossible play.  Fortunately, the Royals stranded Teahen at third base.

Inge got Teahen back in the 11th, however, gunning him down at home plate when he tried to score on a single, and kept the ballgame tied.

Tiger Power: 

Miguel Cabrera's first home run in the Olde English D might be what more people talk about tonight and tomorrow, but Carlos Guillen brought his Big Boi bat today.  Detroit's new first baseman went 3-for-5, and probably provided the most dramatic hit of the day when he tied the game in the eighth with a solo home run (showing off a classic, power-hitting first baseman's swing) off Brett Tomko.