What to make of Opening Day?

By the time I sat down to watch the Tigers and Blue Jays tussle on the first day of the baseball season, the home team was down three early. But what do we expect when Jeremy Bonderman is on the mound?

Over the past two seasons he’s been prone to giving up runs in the initial frames before settling down. Sometimes his hitters have his back, other times — like Monday — not so much.

So what to make of Opening Day? Not much, really.

There’s nothing to be read into this game except that some of the Tigers’ most infuriating tendencies did not die on that cold night in St. Louis last October. The way I see it, if the home opener gives us an indication of anything, it’s that things haven’t changed. And that’s alarming.

Okay, okay. It’s one game and I get all that. But here are some examples of the Tigers’ bad habits:

1. The aforementioned Bonderman’s generosity.
2. Craig Monroe swinging at every pitch coming his way and – surprise! – striking out four times, stranding two.
3. Fernando Rodney becoming more like the late Aurelio Lopez every day.
4. Carlos Guillen striding to the plate in the 10th after a two-out walk to Magglio Ordonez and swinging at the first pitch to end the game. Guillen left five men on.

We saw a lot of good things out of the Tigers, too, of course. Placido Polanco maintaining his scalding Spring Training pace with a nice 3 for 5 day. Author Gary Sheffield with a couple of rocket shots and a pair of RBI. Bondo settling down to have a solid overall outing. Joel Zumaya doing his thing.

You get the picture.

What to make of Opening Day? Nothing. Except that for the first time in recent memory the Detroit Tigers have a team coming into a new year with sky-high expectations. And we’re all fired up for another magic summer.

Bring on game two.