Today is the eve of the Tigers biggest game of the year that does not count and is played against a college team, the Florida Southern Moccasins. Or, as I sometimes call them, Florida Suckern! See what I did there? Now, it's your duty to listen to this. Hah, duty.
http://www.eharwell.com/turtle.wma
(just make sure to yell 2008 really loud at the end)
Todd Jones toes the mound to start off the pretend season. He might go for the complete game, or he might leave in the 2nd inning because we have 6 others already scheduled to pitch. We will see.
Obviously the big off season acquisition everyone is talking about is that Matt Mantei is a Tiger. Recovering from many catastrophic injuries, such as shark bite and a very nasty case of dirt in the eye, he is hopefully a piece of the bullpen that will not ultimately defecate on our souls when it really matters. Brandon Inge stood in the batters box and watched Mantei's stuff up close. Inge described his stuff as "nasty." Since we know Brandon Inge has a rich history of consistent hitting and not striking out, we know complements such as this are rare coming from him.
We also have Denny Bautista. I misread the article that I read when we signed him, and had a minor spaz attack thinking we signed Danny Bautista, the ROCK of the mid 90's Detroit Tigers outfielding core.I also read that Denny Bautista this off season was featuring a 98 MPH fastball and a "knee buckling curve." If we are lucky, he can maybe be as effective as Al Levine.
The Tigers also aqcuired Miguel Cabrera, Dontrelle Willis and Edgar Renteria. We also traded Cameron Maybin, Andrew Miller. So, pretty lame for an off season. Joel Zumaya was also injured when he crashed his motor bike when he was distracted while holding a guitar hero guitar into his flaming house in San Diego as God attempted to smite California. Fernando Rodney also has a bum shoulder right now. But, we our going to win every game 14-10 anyways, so who needs relievers.
Detroits/FlaSoMoc scheduled for a 1:05 start. Or, for my Hawaiian readers, that's a 7:05 am start. The game won't be televised, probably won't be on the radio, and will probably never be talked about, ever. Needless to say, this game is crucial in securing confidence for a long run into Octovember this year.
