In the Tigers' 2012 home opener, both Justin Verlander and the Red Sox picked up where they left off last season.
JV pitched eight scoreless innings and allowed two hits. Then, the opening day overflow crowd of 45,000 saw something that never happened all last season: Jose Valverde blow a save opportunity. The Sox got two in a mini rally punctuated by Kevin Yoooo-kilis' triple, and tied the score.
But that's okay, because the Sox bullpen imploded, like it did in game 162 last October. With one out, Peralta and Avila singled, and Ramon Santiago was hit by a pitch. Austin Jackson's single plated pinch runner Danny Worth with the winner. Austin Jackson, he's still the man! He tripled and singled twice batting leadoff, scored a run and drove in one, and avoided the strikeout bugaboo that cost him a lot of productive ABs in 2011.
Some fans and at least one beat writer thought JV should have finished the game. He did throw 105 pitches, it was freezing at Comerica, there's 161 games left, and I thought it was time for him to come out so the big home crowd could see Papa Grande work. Forty-nine times last season, he entered in a save situation and got it done. So why not?
JV took a no-decision in a game he maybe should have finished, but Valverde got the win, we're in first place by a game over the Indians, and all is right with the world. At least until Saturday.
-----------------------
The Blue Jays and Indians opened in Cleveland, and offered further proof of Annie Savoy's contention that the game of baseball is linear and precise in ways that only Walt Whitman can appreciate. Or Isadora Duncan, I forget which ...
Jack Hannahan and J.P. Arencebia homered, giving each team one player who's homered in the first games of his last three seasons. Hannahan in the last three Tribe openers, and Arencebia in the Jays' last two plus his Show debut in August 2010.
The game was also MLB.com's free televised game of the day. The Jays won 7-4 in 16 innings, and there was lots of time for more new league records, for innings played on opening day, and for consumption of a Jays-Indians game from all four possible sources: both teams' radio including a local Sarnia station for the first time in three years, and both TV feeds via the MLB web site.
So we're a two home team town again. And on FM. For 161 of the next 180 days there will be at least three fewer hours of country music on the local radio dial. That's also a good thing.
No comments:
Post a Comment