Spring Awakening

Baseball is back, and so are we! As the regular season has finally gotten underway, the three of us think it's high time to resume writing on this blog regularly. With the added stress of school, work, family, and other stressors, we haven't gotten to see as much baseball as we would like. That is about to change.

After the first week of baseball, our boys are 4-3. Not great, you say? We beg to differ. This season we have made a solemn vow--we are NOT gonna let the haterz get us down. How quickly people forget what happened last season! A shitty first 2/3rds of the season and almost everyone was checking out, and then BOOM! Our Tigers were World Series bound. So even if we DON'T do as well in April (in the D! [!!!!!]) as everyone thinks we should, who the hell cares? It's one month! That being said, 4-3 ain't all that bad, folks, and we'll tell ya why.

This top 5 (Austin Jackson, Torii Hunter, Miguel Cabrera, Prince Fielder, Victor Martinez) is the best we've ever seen on our team. When they're on, they're on, and it has been evidenced very early in the season that they can be hard--if not impossible--to stop. Save for V-Mart, who we are expecting to take a little more time to get going (he HAS been gone for a year) the Fab Five have already made their mark.

Ajax is the catalyst for this group, and whenever he gets on base their is a high likelihood that the Tigers will score. Torii has been extremely impressive in his first week as a Tiger, hitting .424 and scoring 4 runs. While we obviously don't expect him to keep up with that BA number, we do think he is going to fit in quite nicely in the D. And don't even get us started on his bromance with Austin!

And then there's our big boys, the dynamic duo of Miguel & Prince. If we're perfectly honest here, we think both have the potential to win an MVP award. Seriously. The potential of their numbers has grown exponentially thanks to V-Mart's intimidating presence. In our minds, Triple Crown King Miguel has a great shot a repeating by simply coming close to the numbers he did last year. We're not saying he will win the Triple Crown again, but we are saying he should be plenty of folks' pre-season pick for MVP.

As far as starting pitching go, we're willing to overlook a few bumps in April! All these group of fine (and we mean fine) gentlemen need are a few outings under their belts and they can get back to kicking ass and taking names like they did in the postseason. Why, look at Anibal Sanchez! His outing today against the better-than-average Toronto Blue Jay offense was outstanding. We predict by May/June JV & Co. will be utterly dominant.

And then we come to our bullpen.

This, as we have said before, is clearly going to be a trouble spot--our only real trouble spot, hopefully--this year. While we are confident in Drew Smyly, Al Alburquerque, Joaquin Benoit and Octavio Dotel,  we honestly have not a clue what is to happen with our closing spot. True, the club did sign Jose Valverde, but we wouldn't call ourselves (or the rest of the Tigers fanbase) big fans of that move. Hopefully the team can figure out this issue sooner rather than later, or it could end up costing us more than a few games.

So for now, before people get too caught up in the stress and worry of will-the-or-won't-they-be-good-enough-to-make-the-playoffs-gahhh-help!!, relax and enjoy this lovely season of April in the D. IOnce again, it's going to be a fun and exciting year. We just know it.

PS-Congrats to Alex Avila and his wife on the birth of their first child!!!!! We remember when Alex was just a yougin' making his first start in the bigs....*sniff sniff*

Breaking Dawn

Can you feel it?

Feel what, you ask? Why, just the glorious sensation of this 2013 baseball season finally, mercifully starting up again. Pitchers and catchers officially reported to training camp today, and it feels like the beginning of something beautiful.

While the Indians may be making wanna-be flashy, late off-season moves, our team doesn't have to. Our Tigers are, once again, the team to beat in the AL Central, and THIS year our boys have the leadership and all-around experience to make another post-season run. The question is: are they going to put us through as much pain and stress as last year?

Seriously. You remember the absolute torture of last season. The last month was fun and exciting, but we do not deserve the up-and-down emotional roller coaster of 2012. But this year, we have our beloved V-Mart back, and the addition of perennial leader Torii Hunter. They can hopefully keep our team on pace and not give us so many heart attacks.

But lets get to one of the burning issues of the offseason, a question which we're sure you're all sick and tired of, which has been dissected by almost everyone and talked about at length. But who cares, because we're going to talk about it anyway!

There aren't many uncertainties on our roster this season, but the biggest and most obvious one would have to be Bruce Rondon.

Welcome to the team, Bruce! The haters have already started talking about how his inexperience and youth are going to doom our closer spot and wreck our chances at being an elite ball club. While it is true that having a crappy closer  can definitely affect the swagger of a team, how is it fair to say that Bruce Wayne Rondon is going to fail before he even starts?

Look. If Jimbo and our main man Dave Dombrowski think that the kid has the stuff to be a closer for this team, then he does. It's just a matter of him executing. We think Master Bruce is talented enough to close for our club. Whether he can handle the pressure remains to be seen, but we're not going to count him out before he even steps on the field.

The sun is rising once more on our team. It is no coincidence that our team is seemingly getting better and better as the years go on, but we think that our time is now. Who knows how long we're going to have all of these superstars and young talents together? It's time for our boys to take what is theirs, and it all starts in Lakeland. We can't wait to see what happens next.

Bye-Bye Brinks Truck

The boss gone.  Whose walk-up song can we make fun of this year?!

An injured Delmon Young goes to Philadelphia

We all know that Delmon Young was a free agent at the end of last year, but now we finally know where he'll be playing!  The Phillies signed the portly DH to a one-year $750,000 contract.  However, if we were Phillies fans, now would not be the time we'd be poppin' bottles of dat Rosé.

The Phillies' General Manager Ruben Amaro has said that they signed Delmon Young so that he could play right field for the Phillies. Everyday.  Pardon our French, but what the f***?!  This kind of decision is too ridiculous for even Jim Leyland to consider. Delmon Young is no good at defense;  This is probably something to which even Delmon himself could admit. And he hasn't played right field in years...certainly not since he came to the Tigers. This makes the fact that the Phillies want him to play right field every single day for them simply unbelievable. It's so crazy, that we can hear the cries of despair from Phillies loyalists from around the nation as we type.

Perhaps Amaro sees something in Delmon that we Tigers fans did not.  It's true that he came alive for us the past couple of postseasons.  This postseason, Delmon was hitting when pretty much no one else was, and that was why he won MVP for the ALCS.  You can't be a talentless hack and get a 1.186 OPS in the ALCS at the same time.  Maybe the Phillies are hoping that Delmon hits like he did in the postseason all season for them. However, the chances of that happening are slim, especially since Demon might start the season for the Phillies on the Disabled List.

Despite the strangeness of this contract, we're happy that we don't have to deal with Delmon's bullshit anymore Delmon was signed somewhere else, and that he can continue playing the game he loves.  If he plays for the Phillies like he played for us, we'll enjoy seeing him on the road this year! Bye-bye Brinks truck! And good riddance!

The Return

We're baaaaaaaaaack!

Not as soon as we would have hoped, but April in the D is back in blogging business once more!

Sorry for the extended leave of absence, but after the acquisition of Torii Hunter, things got crazy for us! With finals, holidays, and job stress quickly rising, it was hard for us to keep up with this thing. Add on the heartbreak of our boys' World Series and it was the perfect recipe for completely neglecting this blog. We apologize.

But like a phoenix rises from the ashes, our blog too will be reborn! Our break was only temporary, folks--we are back for good.

Now, down to business. Stuff has happened since we've been gone, but not too much stuff. Miguel Cabrera did indeed win the MVP (yes, it has been THAT long since we've been on here) and it wasn't even all that close, and thank goodness for that! We always knew Cabrera would win out in the end, but we didn't think it would be such a convincing victory. Now he's in the running to be on the cover of MLB 13 The Show, but we have to vote him in. So, VOTE!

Also, lest we not forget that Anibal Sanchez is returning!!!! Yes, it's to the tune of $80 million, and yes, the Tigers apparently insulted him by a lesser offer at the Winter Meetings, but Dave Dombrowski waved his magic money wand bestowed to him by Mike Illitch and all was taken care of.  We even got the pleasure of stealing Sanchez right from underneath the Cubs' nose! HA!

Since then, however, it's been a pretty tame winter. No big splashes at the Winter Meetings. No acquisitions of any hot rod stud players. Not that we care. With V-Mart healing up, Sanchez returning, and Torii on board, we should be ready for one hell of a season.

TigerFest and the caravan are upcoming, and with pitchers and catchers reporting in a matter of weeks, this winter is looking brighter already!