04/03/2007

Oh, the huge difference a year makes

By Jeff Peek
Staff writer
jpeek@
record-eagle.com

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There was a time when Opening Day meant everything to this baseball team.

During the 12 years from 1994-2005 when a .500 record would have been greeted with the enthusiasm of a World Series championship, there was big-time pressure on the Detroit Tigers to take the opener.

Certainly, they would have denied it then, and they'd deny it now.

But most years, Opening Day was the only time the Tigers could count on playing in front of a packed house in their home ballpark — except for the nights when the Yankees and Red Sox came to town or the team was giving away an Al Kaline bobblehead.

It was the only day when all eyes were focused on them. It was their only chance to make a good first impression.

When you're low on talent, as Detroit was during those dirty dozen years, momentum is everything. Win one, and you feel like you can win another. Do it impressively and you feel like you can win a lot more.

But lose that first one, even though it's just one of 162, and game No. 2 suddenly holds more weight than it should.

The worst three seasons in the Tigers' 12-year coma were 1996 (53-109), 2002 (55-106) and 2003 (43-119). There was little room for error. Not surprisingly, all three seasons started with an opening-day loss.

But that was then. This is now.

The defending American League champion Tigers dropped their opener on Monday, 5-3 to the Toronto Blue Jays. And they did it in front of a record crowd of 44,297 at Comerica Park.

What did it mean? The players gave the same answers as those who came before them. This time, however, the words rang true.

With a team as loaded with talent as manager Jim Leyland's 2007 squad, game 1 doesn't mean any more than game 2 or game 67 or game 155. A game is a game. And Tigers starting pitcher Jeremy Bonderman emphasized that Monday.

"I didn't feel no pressure,” Bonderman said, bristling at the suggestion that nerves caused him to give up three first-inning runs. "Every game you want to get off to good start. You can't hang your head about it.

"You can't ever get too high or too low,” he said. "We would have loved to win, but we'll come back tomorrow and play hard. We'll try to win the next two (at home, Wednesday and Thursday).

"This is nothing like the playoffs. In the playoffs, everything is on the line. Every game could be your last.

"Are we disappointed? Sure. But this is just one game. We'll be fine.”

Newcomer Gary Sheffield, who won a championship with Leyland and the Florida Marlins in 1997, agreed.

"Everything slows down after that first one,” he said. "It's just good to get it out of your system.

"We wanted to win today, but sometimes things don't go your way. We have a good team. We're going to win a lot of ball games.”

Sheffield and Bonderman aren't the only ones who believe that.