I don’t know about you, but I’m certainly ready for some baseball. Sunday is Opening Day, but the Tigers’ first game isn’t until Monday, when they’ll go against Toronto at Comerica, which kinda sucks because the game is at 1:05 and I’ll be in class then, and I probably won’t get home until after the game is over. Of course, I would like nothing more than to see my boys do one better than they did last year. The good news: ESPN magazine has picked the Tigers to win the ultra-competitive AL Central. Not only that, but Tim Brown at Yahoo Sports has them going all the way, winning the World Series against the Dodgers (which I would find extremely hilarious, in an inside-joke kind of way). The bad news: There are an annoyingly large number of sports experts picking the Indians to win the AL Central (though I suppose there’s always the wild card slot) and Yankees to win the World Series (and I’m saying this even though I do like the Yankees, but…they have been predicted to win the World Series every single year, but they haven’t even made it to the World Series since 2002, and they haven’t won since 2001).

The worse news: Kenny Rogers is out till July. I’ll come right out and say it: Kenny Rogers is Detroit’s best pitcher. This is extremely NOT good. However, if it had to happen, it’s better that it happen now and not in the second half of the season, and I’ll tell you why. Now bear in mind that, by my own admission, I am not a sports expert, even when it comes to the Tigers. I’m a little out of the loop, especially since I spent four of the past five years at Denison, which obviously doesn’t have as much Tiger coverage as I get here. So take my analysis with the proverbial grain of salt, BUT, from what I remember (not having the score from every game memorized or on hand), over the past few years, the Tigers have started out relatively well. Their problem seems to be keeping the momentum going. Witness last August and September (not to mention the World Series). Even before that, at the beginning of the 2004 and 2005 seasons I recall commenting on Xanga that the Tigers were doing pretty well, only to have things completely fall apart later on. Now, the “falling apart” thing seems to happen later each year, which is a good sign. If the Chad Durbin (or, failing that, Andrew Miller) can hold his own till July, I think Kenny Rogers ought to be able to cushion the “falling apart” thing that’s bound to creep up in late August/early September. Plus, Justin Verlander, Jeremy Bonderman, and Nate Robertson don’t exactly suck either (though all three of them seemed to have forgotten how to pitch once they got to the World Series, but that’s another story). So…it ain’t over till it’s over. Just remember…no one gave the Tigers a chance last year, and look what happened.

If it makes you feel any better, we got Carlos Guillen till at least 2011, plus we beat the Yankees pretty handily today. By the way, I’ll try to get around to putting this site into Tigers mode sometime next week.

In news completely unrelated to baseball but cause for happy dance anyway: Season 3 of Doctor Who premieres in the UK tomorrow night!! No clue as to when it’s gonna be shown in the US, but that’s not likely to stop me.