Yesterday's Tiger Game Was The Most Fun I've Ever Had Watching Baseball
If this is what 2022 will be for the Tigers, then we're in for a treat. On a day in which Detroit's offense was utterly shut down through 7 innings, Drew Hutchison, Alex Lange, and Jacob Barnes kept the Tigers afloat with four shutout innings before the offense came alive, rallying off of Liam Hendricks (twice). This was the most incredible Opening Day for the Tigers in…shit, ever? It was one of those sporting events that was so awesome it felt like it had to have been scripted. Comerica Park was as full and as loud as it's been in a long time when Eric Haase, the hometown kid, tied the game in the 9th inning with a solo blast.
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Hitman Haase is dangerous. The dude has the clutch gene. He had so many big hits for the Tigers a year ago, but none were bigger than the bomb he hit in the 9th yesterday. I understand entirely why Tucker Barnhart started Opening Day. He's one of the best pitch framers in baseball, and I think he's going to do great things for this young pitching staff, but every time I wonder what Eric Haase's role will be for this team, he's hitting the ball 350 feet over the left-field fence.
Haase's heroics set the stage for one of the more bizarre endings I've seen to a baseball game in a minute. In his first game as a Tiger, Javier Baez just missed a home run on a ball that was initially ruled an out following an excellent sell job by AJ Pollack. This is the first major league I've been to that ended three times in 5 minutes. It looked pretty clear that Baez's game winner went off the wall before Pollock snagged it. Then the Tigers started celebrating (as did the rest of the crowd) before the umpires officially overturned the call. That's why you have replay. They got the call right, and Comerica went nuts.
The only thing that wasn't perfect about yesterday's game was the massively oversized brim of my hat, which is something I didn't recognize until people on Twitter pointed it out. I'm in the process of acquiring a new one. Is it pathetic to celebrate game 1 of a 162 game season like they just won the World Series? Probably. Do I care? Absolutely freaking not. No fan should ever apologize for being happy. I watched every pitch of a 114 loss season a few years back. Every win feels good, and this one felt great. Who knows where this season will go. Maybe we'll look back on this game as a blip on the baseball radar, a moment that wasn't indicative of what this season would be. Perhaps it's nothing, or maybe it's the start of something special—what a way to start the season.