AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

AP photo

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Tigers 6, Royals 3

Not much recap here tonight. Justin Verlander cruised against the Royals. He did get into a bit of trouble, giving up plenty of hits over the course of the game and allowing the Royals to load the bases. But a double play got him out of it.

In Carlos Guillen’s first game back after Jim Leyland gave him a few days to rest his shoulder, the shortstop went 3-for-4 with two RBIs. Curtis Granderson, Magglio Ordonez, and, yes, even Sean Casey(!) had two-hit games. Casey even drove in a run with two-outs, but he wasn’t the only one. All six Tigers runs came with two-outs.

Around the Central

Detroit is the only team in the American League Central to win. The Angels defeated the White Sox; the Orioles beat Cleveland; and Boston beat Minnesota. That puts the Tigers a game out of first in the division, if you’re the type to keep track.

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There are two ways you can help remember Brian Bluhm, the Tigers fan killed in the Virginia Tech massacre.

The first is a scholarship fund set up by his parents. Send a check to — Brian Bluhm Virginia Tech Civil Engineering Scholarship Fund, c/o Marathon Bank, 4095 Valley Pike, Winchester VA 22601

The second is a fund at MotownSports. The thread is available here. If you don’t wish to sign up at the forum, contact Bill Ferris at the Detroit Tigers Weblog for more information for how you can help.

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Michigan State head coach Rick Comley is all smiles after his Spartans defeated Boston College 3-1 in the championship game of the 2007 NCAA Men’s Frozen Four hockey championships in St. Louis. (AP Photo/Tom Gannam)

I know, baseball blog and all, but I’m a Sparty grad, so I just have to say GO GREEN! GO WHITE! The underdog Michigan State Spartans came from behind in the third period to beat Boston College for its first hockey national championship in 20 years!

MSU coach Rick Comley was one of the first coaches I ever interviewed, as a cub reporter at the college paper at Northern Michigan University. Soon after, I went to MSU and he followed me. Smart guys, the both of us. It seems to have worked out fine for us.

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Big Al first brought this to my attention last night, but ESPN “personality” Colin Cowherd decided to, oh, what the heck, why not?, blow up a sports website. He didn’t pick Deadspin or With Leather, and their myriad fans and bigtime backing. No, he decided to pick on The Big Lead, which brings us great sports information and recently a nice interview with Curtis Granderson. It’s been down for over 24 hours now. Why did he do it? Who knows. But maybe he has a thing against the blogosphere after he stole from The M Zone and got attacked by the blogosphere for it.

Deadspin has feedback from the author of the blog.

I fail to understand the point in most sports talk radio anyway. There are some decent programs out there. (ESPN’s Mike and Mike seems to be OK when I hear it). But there’s a lot of outright garbage ESPN Radio puts on otherwise. And then you get to local sports talk radio? Again, most is awful. There are the hosts who bring you interviews with beat writers, management or athletes. But otherwise, I find the whole thing to be tedious and just cherry-pick the highlights.

Anyway, I just had to weight in what a crappy thing Cowherd did to a good web site. I never listened to him before, and I certainly won’t now. I hope this backfires on him and costs him his job and possible legal action.

Oh, and Big Al has an update on his feelings in a post today.

Related: Last year Fire Joe Morgan tore Cowherd up and had similar sports radio dislikes.

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After Jeremy Bonderman tweaked his knee a bit Thursday, and after Carlos Guillen took a foul ball off his shin and Vance Wilson felt something in his elbow yesterday, and after Curtis Granderson dives in center field and comes up shaking his hand and wrist today against the Yankees, well it led me to this little suggestion for the Tigers:

GET THE HECK OUT OF LAKELAND!

Actually, I’m sure they’d like to as much as we’d like them to. Let’s get this regular season started. I’m tired of waiting.

Jim Leyland seems to have made up his mind on the 25-man roster, though he’s not giving any indication of who is going north, Danny Knobler writes. Most guesses say that Chad Durbin gets the last pitching spot, ahead of lefty Bobby Seay. No one really knows what’s going to happen for that final bench spot. I am just going to guess the bench looks like: Wilson, Thames, Infante and, yes, Neifi. That leaves Chris Shelton and Ramon Santiago headed to Toledo. But Knobler does report there’s some chance Shelton could make the team, based on the need for an actual backup at first base, not Thames. So there’s still surprises to be seen.

Just, guys, don’t get hurt. It’s okay to let a ball drop in spring training!

Oh yah, the Tigers beat the Yankees, 9-5, in a rather boring game with few highlights of real interest. Sheffield hit his third home run of the spring, thankyouverymuch PECOTA. Jason Grilli does deserve his spot on the pitching roster. Granderson was fine after the injury scare, going 3-for-5 for the day, and well, that’s about it. The Yankees pitching wasn’t that impressive, though the starter, Jeff Karstens, is penciled in as their No. 5 man until Wang comes back from his injury somewhere around late April. Otherwise, it really wasn’t pounding on the real Yanks pitchers.

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FYI, the weather? It could be worse. Click for full size image.

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Gary Sheffield arrived at Lakeland Wednesday morning, as the Tigers opened Spring Training opened for the full squad today. It’s always fun and exciting when Detroit adds a new star. I’m not sure the reason. Maybe it was several years of not adding a true star player at all, followed by Juan Gonzalez, followed by several more years of not adding a star player. Then Pudge was grand. That was huge. Magglio Ordonez signed, and though it’s only been two seasons, it’s hard to remember how hyped he was. Sheffield himself arrived quietly, but with a lot of pomp-and-circumstance surrounding him. That, and as Tom Gage pointed out in the previous link, the New York media was still chasing him, like Sheffield should care about the spat between A-Rod and Derek Jeter.

John Lowe says Lakeland is starting to feel like a suburb of Cooperstown with all the Hall-of-Famers, future Hall members or possible Hall members around Tigertown. He went on to commit the sin of comparing Sheffield to former Tigers star Al Kaline in a full article.

Lowe: Kaline and Sheffield also each have a few hundred more career walks than strikeouts. That also makes them unusual. In recent decades, high strikeout totals have become an accepted part of the run producer’s resume.

Today in spring training, Sheffield will go to work in a Tigers uniform for the first time. If he does in the next few seasons for the Tigers what he has done across 8,000 at-bats in 19 seasons with a half-dozen clubs, he could become Detroit’s best all-around hitter since Kaline.

I, myself, don’t see the comparison as a sin, as Sheff has been accepted with open arms by the organization Danny Knobler reports. But I know a lot of fans are still iffy on Sheffield, his past and his attitude.

And heck, Kaline likes him.

(Kalinie quoted by Lowe): “This guy is used to winning,” Kaline said. “He wants to play for Jimmy, and he’s going to take a lot of pressure off some of our players in the middle of the lineup.

“He’ll make a pitcher work. He sets up our lineup nicely. He’s nice to have.”

UPDATE: And he put on quite a show, the reporters tell us. I hope the Freep has video of that.

Beck: Sheffield’s batting practice wasn’t one of those home-run derby performances you would think, because there’s a purpose to his hitting work. But to watch his swing up close on a practice field is a sight. You know his swing isn’t going to be the same on the first day of full-squad workouts as it will be come the regular season, but you can still see what’s different about it, and you can tell his wrist injury from last year hasn’t changed that.

Lowe:

Sheffield showed that the baseball makes a different, louder crack off his bat than it does off of most bats. He mashed several batting-practice serves from the coaching staff to the distant parts of the outfield.

Update 2: One thing you can say about the New York media, they don’t give up a story just because it changes teams. The New York Post has a story. You would prefer Sheff stop talking about his former team though, but he is a talker and honest with his feelings.

More updates on this post as more stories come out.

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I added a set of news headlines from major sources gathered by SportsSpyder.com. This idea totally came from what Athletics Nation has, I will admit. I tried doing a few with the News and Freep and whatnot, but their version was just so much better. Hopefully I’m not violating any agreements, but I didn’t find any and don’t make a dime anyway!

Also, this is probably a bit off topic but I noticed that a music video by Marco Volcy was put on YouTube recently, and I thought I’d share the link. I mention this because I did a story on him — he played basketball at Northern Michigan the previous four years — and very much appreciate his music. If you like R&B, I think you’ll like it. It played on a Canadian equivalent of MTV a few years back. It’s in French, of course. But I really like the sound.

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The Free Press’ Jon Paul Morosi is reporting the Tigers and Brandon Inge are close to a deal to keep him in Detroit four more years for about $24M.

Update: Done deal.

Given the nuttiness of the free agent market, the look of the minors and Inge’s ability to make some great plays at third, this sounds like a good deal to me. Looks like he’s being paid about right, and I am a big Inge fan since he’s been around forever.

Update 2: Bilfer talks about the fielding stats.

Morosi also reports the Tigers also signed lefty center fielder Brandon Watson to a minor league deal. Watson started in the middle for the Washington Nationals on opening day in 2006, but quickly ended up back in the minors. He had some hype and I actually had him at the end of the bench in my fantasy keeper league, I’ll admit, but he quickly ended up gone.

First Inning’s scouting of him: Watson has no power and mediocre plate discipline. However, he’s fast enough to get on base and serve as a backup outfielder in the major leagues. FIPro suggests he will be a .290/.340/.370 type of hitter at the major league level. That’s not bad for a backup outfielder, but as soon as he loses a step he won’t be able to get on base and he will have almost no value on a major league team. His future could resemble the careers of Endy Chavez or Alex Sanchez.

In other news, Baseball Prospectus (sub req) found Detroit to have have the second-best outfield arms in baseball, statistically. They used the ability to prevent runs on second from scoring on a single as their measurement device. League average was 60% of runners scored. Detroit’s outfield of Curtis Granderson, Craig Monroe and Magglio Ordonez allowed 47.7%.

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