Dontrelle Willis had his spring debut with the Tigers this afternoon giving up one run in two innings of work. The game with Cleveland ended in a 3-3 tie. Placido Polanco and Miguel Cabrera both drove in runs in a 2-run opening inning.
Yesterday, Justin Verlander had his stuff working in a 3-1 win over Toronto. Curtis Granderson hit his second home run of the spring to boost our offense. Maybe an even bigger storyline of Friday's exhibition, was the work of our top prospect Rick Porcello. Like Verlander, the 18-year old right hander pitched two shutout innings and even struck out Frank Thomas on a nasty sinker. It's great to hear that we still have one promising young prospect to look forward to.
Jon Heyman of SI.com reports that Miguel Cabrera may be close to signing a 20-million dollar per year contract with the Tigers. This is fantastic news. Being able to lock up one of the league's best young stars is what great franchises consistently do. Detroit and Cabrera are a perfect fit for each other.
This is the type of article I would expect from Drew Sharp, but this time Michael Rosenberg of the Free Press writes about what could go wrong for the Tigers this year. I think that maybe this is just Rosenberg's round about way of saying that Detroit has a damn good ballclub and it would take some big disasters for them to have a bad year.
In what seems like a no-brainer, the Detroit News is reporting that Justin Verlander has been announced as our opening day starter. Leyland also said the Kenny Rogers will pitch the second game and Jeremy Bonderman will go in the third. That leaves Dontrelle Willis and Nate Robertson as the 4th and 5th starters. It hasn't been announced in which order yet.
The Tigers face Cleveland again tomorrow at 1:05 ET. Enjoy your Saturday night.
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