CHICAGO -- The hot afternoons of Lakeland, Fla., seemed like a distant memory as the Tigers bundled up to work out at Guaranteed Rate Field on Wednesday morning with temperatures in the 30s. But as manager A.J. Hinch and president of baseball operations Scott Harris watched on from the dugout, they hoped that the work ethic that propelled players through Detroit’s most successful Spring Training record-wise since 2012 remains.
Hinch said when he talked to the team before its flight north, he congratulated not just the 26 players who made the Opening Day roster but the others who didn’t make it and pushed those who did to get better. The same momentum and improvement that created difficult roster decisions for Harris and Hinch they now hope to turn against the White Sox on Thursday.
“This Spring Training competition went really well. Guys got a lot better. That's one phase of the competition,” Harris said. “The next phase of the competition is a lot harder, and that's going out and facing other big league teams with a ton of talent on that team. I really hope that our guys don't treat tomorrow as sort of a finish line. It's the starting blocks of a long, grueling race. And I hope guys don't take a breath and relax knowing that they've made this team, because we all have to continue to get better.
“There's a ton of guys in [Triple-A] Toledo right now that are getting after it, trying to force our hand to get up here. And it's a sign of health; it's a good thing. I want guys to grab that mentality that they had in Lakeland and apply it to the regular season. If they do that, I think this organization is going to be in a good place.”
A good place ideally would include a fast start, the kind the Tigers have been searching for over the past few years. Detroit lost nine of its first 11 games last year, including series sweeps in St. Petersburg vs. the Rays and at home to the Red Sox. The Tigers played over .500 after that, blossoming into one of the hottest teams in the American League down the stretch, but they never got over .500 for the season.
There were slow starts before that: 7-14 in 2022, 8-22 in ‘21, 9-14 in ‘20. Whether it’s a tough schedule, young roster or ill health, the Tigers have tended to be better late than early. Then again, their last hot start was 8-4 in a ‘19 season that ended with a 47-114 record.
“I know that's been on a lot of people's minds,” Hinch said of the starts. “It has not been something we've talked about, because we never show up and don't want to win. … We're going to try to win as many games as we can, whether it's now or deeper into the season. We know the realities of the guys that have been here. We know the difficult spot we put ourselves in previously, but we also have a number of guys in the clubhouse who didn't experience that. To be honest with you, if I brought that up, I would get a lot of dead stares.
“We're a different team. It's a different group. We're not carrying a bunch of garbage in from last season into this season. It's not coach-speak. It's just the way we operate day to day to try to win that day.”
Win today’s game, the mantra goes. And while Opening Day has significance, Hinch said, he goes into this one focused on what the club can do to beat Chicago and lefty starter Garrett Crochet. That could mean an extra right-handed bat or two, while others wait for pinch-hit opportunities once the White Sox go to their bullpen. It could mean some strategic bullpen use by the Tigers themselves after ace Tarik Skubal.
“We're going to play the guys that we think give us the best chance to beat both the starting pitcher and the relief pitcher,” Hinch said. “Lineups are going to change. There's no favoritism given to the fact that it's Opening Day. We're trying to beat the starter. And if we don't beat the starter, we need to beat the ‘pen. And there are a lot of decisions during the game that are created by how we start the game, both in how well we do but more importantly, how the lineup's configured and who's playing.”