Detroit Tigers SP Justin Verlander was 8-1 with a 1.78 ERA during the day last year<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nBoston is set to begin its 112th American League season and will look to improve upon its 54-56-1 all-time mark on Opening Day.\u00a0 The Red Sox made plenty of changes during the offseason due to posting a 7-20 record in September.\u00a0 Enter new manager Bobby Valentine, who takes over for Terry Francona, who led the franchise to two World Series championships.\u00a0 The Red Sox are 31-39-1 all-time when starting a season on the road, including just two wins in their last eight tries in the situation.<\/p>\n
Red Sox starting pitcher Jon Lester finished last year with a 15-9 record and 3.47 ERA in 31 starts, but fell flat in the final month, posting a 1-3 mark and 5.40 ERA in six September outings.\u00a0 The left-hander was 2-1 with a 3.50 ERA in four starts during the spring.\u00a0 Lester is 0-2 with a 5.89 ERA in three career starts versus the Tigers, as they are the only American League team he has never defeated.\u00a0 He allowed four earned runs in seven innings in his only lifetime appearance in today\u2019s stadium.<\/p>\n
Detroit is certainly expecting big things in finishing the exhibition season with a 20-8 record.\u00a0 The Tigers made a big splash during the offseason in signing former Milwaukee Brewers first baseman Prince Fielder, as he will join forces with last year\u2019s AL batting champion to make up one of the best lineups in baseball.\u00a0 \u201cWe got guys ready,\u201d commented Tigers manager Jim Leyland about starting the new season.\u00a0 Cabrera did miss nine spring games due to an eye injury, but is ready to go.\u00a0 Detroit is 37-17 in its last 54 games as a home favorite.<\/p>\n
Tigers starting pitcher Justin Verlander captured the AL Cy Young and MVP awards last year, finishing with an outstanding 24-5 record and 2.40 ERA in 34 starts.\u00a0 The right-hander proved to be nearly impossible to beat during the day in 2011, posting an 8-1 mark and 1.78 ERA, as opponents hit just .158 against him.\u00a0 He will be making his eighth career start versus the Red Sox, coming in with a 3-2 record and 3.22 ERA.\u00a0 Verlander served up just nine home runs in 117 2\/3 innings in front of the home fans a year ago.<\/p>\n
Bettors will likely back the Tigers due to their 8-0 record in Verlander\u2019s last eight starts as a favorite of -110 to -150, while the Red Sox are 1-9 on the road versus a right-handed starter.<\/p>\n
Make sure to check out our Major League Baseball picks<\/a> all season long and get the most up-to-date betting odds at Bookmaker<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Boston Red Sox (0-0) and Detroit Tigers (0-0) will open their respective MLB seasons with a high-profile pitching matchup on Thursday afternoon inside Comerica Park. Boston Red Sox at Detroit Tigers Boston is set to begin its 112th American League season and will look to improve upon its 54-56-1 all-time mark on Opening Day.\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":181,"featured_media":4534,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1444],"tags":[69,2126,48,138,104,997],"class_list":["post-22619","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","tag-boston-red-sox","tag-comerica-park","tag-detroit-tigers","tag-jon-lester","tag-justin-verlander","tag-prince-fielder"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22619","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/181"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22619"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22619\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22621,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22619\/revisions\/22621"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4534"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22619"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22619"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22619"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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