It's baseball time!!!!

The Day is here (well, it's here tomorrow)!  In about 16 hours Austin Jackson will receive the first pitch of the 2011 Regular Season.  Let's take a look what we have to look forward to this season.

Here is our Opening Day roster:
Austin Jackson
Will Rhymes
Magglio Ordonez
Miguel Cabrera
Victor Martinez

Ryan Raburn
Jhonny Peralta
Brandon Inge
Alex Avila

Justin Verlander will take the ball, after promising to have a better April than he has previously.  We all hope that he has it figured out.

Overall the Tigers had a good Spring (I know, it doesn't count, it's small sample size, blah blah blah).  Regardless of all of those truths, the Tigers had a good spring.  They finished at 20-14.  The starters had an ERA of 4.00.  And Max Scherzer's final outing brought that up after allowing 11 earned runs in 2 1/3 innings to close out his spring.

Really, Max and Jhonny Peralta are the only starters who had bad Springs.  Jhonny hit .206 and 0 RBI.  That's not what we want out of our SS, but everyone says he will turn it around.  If not, then Worth or Sizemore will be available to "fill in" for him.

I believe that this will be a good year for the Tigers.  And I don't mean in the "hey, at least we can watch baseball again" way.  I mean I don't see any reason why this team can't make the playoffs.  The pitching seems solid.  The lineup seems to provide plenty of opportunities to score.  The defense isn't the greatest, but Jackson and Inge will give us some oohs and ahhs while everyone else should keep the runs down.

I'm not alone, but in the interest of fairness and balance I should point out that many don't see Detroit taking the AL Central by storm. 
Fangraphs:

Detroit has put together enough talent that barring a major injury to one of their top players they should be in the race for the divisional title with the other flawed contenders for the 2011 American League Central crown.

 Hardball Times (vis BaseballMusings)

1. Chicago White Sox
2. Minnesota Twins
3. Detroit Tigers
4. Cleveland Indians
5. Kansas City Royals

 CBS Sports

Tigers
Twins
White Sox
Indians
Royals

Yahoo Sports picks Detroit 2 times and Chicago 1 time (of 3 predictions)


Sports Illustrated sees a photo finish against the Twins (again).

American Spectator picks Detroit.

So, this should be quite a ride.  I don't think they will start off 35-5 again, but I don't think they will start off 0-7 either.  Ask me again in 24 hours how the first day went!