Detroit Tigers MLB 2015 Team News: Tigers Name David Price Opening Day Starter
David Price will be the Opening Day starter for the Detroit Tigers. Price is probably the best left handed pitcher in the game today, and the Tigers are trying to get him signed to a long term contract extension. On the surface it seems like the right baseball move, and yet Justin Verlander has been the Opening Day starter for seven years running and is home grown talent, so this decision by Manager Brad Ausmus was anything but easy.
In a lot of ways, Verlander is the face of the organization. If he was not a pitcher and played everyday, that would be more true, and there would be even more criticism for starting Price over him in the Opening Day game -- especially if Price does not resign with the team and pitches for someone else in 2016.
Opening Day in Detroit is a little different than most other cities as it is a huge party, but also in a very real sense it is the celebration of the end of winter and the coming of summer with the return of the Tigers to the field.
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In terms of purely baseball, Price should get the start, but MLB is as much entertainment as anything else and the fans have grown to expect to see JV start on Opening Day. It also ends his streak of consecutive starts on Detroit's baseball holiday at 7. Jack Morris holds that team record with 11 straight opening day appearances.
However, there could be an even better reasoning behind this decision. Due to the schedule, the Tigers' opening day starter will face the Cleveland Indians in the second series of the schedule. The Indians are likely the main rival for the AL Central crown. The second pitcher will not pitch against Cleveland and the Indians have been known to hit Verlander fairly well.
