Back from the dead, Billy Zane lets us know what's up.

Miguel Cabrera's single with the bases loaded in the 9th gave the Tigers a much needed 5-4 win after choking away a complete game from 2011 Cy Young award winner (yeah, I said it) Justin Verlander yesterday.

Ryan Raburn also had a solid day for the Tigers, getting two hits and robbing Michael Young of a home run in the 3rd inning. Austin Jackson helped gun down Adrian Beltre when he tried to stretch a double into a trouble, and also notched a triple of his own. Overall, the fans were pretty pumped about the win.

[Box Score]

With the Tigers handling their bidness against the Orioles last night, Jim Leyland emptied his bench, much to the despair of MASN's baseball production team. All hell broke loose, resulting in a bucket o' fail when they couldn't identify who came into the game.

This is somewhat understandable, considering that Casper Wells was seeing his first action of the season at that point. Failing to recognize Ryan Raburn, who has a .321 career batting average against the Orioles? Not so much.

It's one thing for the camera/graphics guy to screw up, but when the announcers also call the guy by the wrong name, you know it's been a long night.

Last September, we examined the Asian burns of one Koji Uehara, then-newly-appointed closer for the Baltimore Orioles. Much like his closer duties, it turns out Uehara was just getting started with his facial hair as well.

Uehara's epic facial hair powers, rivaled only by those of Giants closer Brian Wilson, have grown immensely. Koji shut down the fearsome Tigers trio of Jhonny Peralta, Alex Avila and Brandon Inge in just 9 pitches today, and the Orioles beat the Tigers 5-1.

In just two games (for him), Ryan Raburn has already shown us the Jekyll and Hyde tendencies of his (t)rusty baseball glove. Exhibit A was already profiled, but we spiffed it up a bit (and linked it, because the page was a bit too busy otherwise).

Exhibit B happened in the first inning of today's 10-7 win over the Yankees when Raburn robbed Alex Rodriguez of extra bases with a leaping catch.

However, Raburn gave the doubters (including this one) more fuel when he dropped a very makeable line drive off the bat of Russell Martin later on.

And since I did a little experimenting with adding sound (key word: EXPERIMENTING) to some of these videos, here's Brennan Boesch's monster home run.

So what do you think? Will we see more good than bad from Raburn? Or will the hot-hitting Boesch take over as the starting left fielder before long? Leave your thoughts in the comments.

Despite Barney Stinson's best efforts, the Tigers weren't able to find their mojo today, losing 6-3 to the New York Yankees. To make matters worse, Curtis Granderson was today's heartbreaker, hitting a go-ahead homer off of Phil Coke in the 7th inning.

Still, it's only one game (a claim that was much easier to come to terms with after eating a pint of Cherry Garcia mixed with tears of sorrow), and a very difficult one at that. There were several good things for the Tigers to build on in the early part of the season. Justin Verlander was much better than normal in April, giving up 3 runs in 6 innings. Jhonny Peralta had an R(h)BI, Will Rhymes was scrappy and Ryan Raburn did this.

Yes, I was in as much disbelief as you are right now. That's why I spent 2 hours trying to figure out how to immortalize it in .gif form. Also immortalized (though not as a .gif, because that shit takes forever) is Jay-Z making an appearance in those expensive ass seats behind the dugout that nobody else but him can afford.

The Tigers are back in action at 4:00 on Saturday. Someone please spare us from Tim McCarver.

In 2008, Mr. Belding couldn't figure out what was going on with the Tigers seemingly stacked lineup. In 2009, Tom Selleck's moustache nearly carried the Tigers to the division title. Last year, the Tigers season flamed out early, much like the career of Kenny Powers. This year, Bobby B took his show over to SB Nation Detroit where The Dude abided to do his preview. Meanwhile, back here at D4L, Rob emptied his (not so) deep pockets to get the (in)famous Barney Stinson to woo that sweet vixen we call the postseason back to Detroit. Also, if you're offended by strong language or stronger sexual desires, you might want to question why you're even here skip down to our other offerings.

What uuuup, Tigers fans! You're probably wondering why I'm taking time out of my busy schedule of hooking up with chicks and... yeah, not much else, to bring you this preview. Well, the answer is simple really: I'm awesome. That, and Robby R was an awesome wingman for me last weekend so I owed him a favor. Now that we've gotten that out of the way, I'll take you through the Tigers lineup and rotation to let you know just how awesomely awesome these guys are gonna be this year. So suit up, and let's get ready for that beautiful date we like to call "Opening Day." (This is so going in my blog.)

The lineup (not to be excused with my lineup, if you know what I mean. Internet high five!)

Click after the jump for the rest of Barney's awesome preview...

The 2011 Detroit Tigers roster just received a shot of scrappiness with the announcement that Will Rhymes, the 4 foot 8 inch second basemen, has won the job over Scott Sizemore. Of course you have fond memories of Will Rhymes because he came out of nowhere last year and gritted out a .300+ average and also because Will Rhymes was the name of your middle school hip hop group that you started. Still, it's somewhat of an upset that he was able to beat out Sizemore for the job. Sizemore was the much more ballyhooed prospect and was healthy unlike last offseason. Personally, I believe Scott Sizemore's ridiculous batting gloves were the chief reason Rhymes won the job.

I really believe this is a negative development for the prospects of the 2011 season. To put it simply, Sizemore really was one of the very few position players that there was some excitement about. There was hope that the 2011 season might be his breakout season, and the fact that Rhymes beat him out might signal that the 26-year-old Sizemore will never make the impact that we hoped he would. Don't get me wrong, I like the skills that Rhymes brings to the team, but Sizemore's ceiling has always been much higher. Rhymes' ability to lay a bunt down, and take an extra base is something past Tiger teams have been lacking. Also, his fielding is much better, and that might be more important than ever with Peralta, Magglio and RaBoesch seeing time in the field. But Rhymes likely will never be a consistent gamebreaking offensive threat.

Most importantly, the inclusion of Rhymes on the 2011 roster means that we can look forward to Rod describing him as having exceptional "grit, "heart" or "scrappiness" likely multiple times per game.  I'd put the initial line at 1.5x per game if betting on Rodism's is how you get your jollies.

No one knows what the Tigers' team photographer was thinking when he took the team's yearbook photos with a blue lens, but I'm guessing it required a Miguel Cabrera-like level of intoxication (too soon?).

I don't know what's worse: the blue lens or the random staring out of the blue little window with slightly menacing (but not really) facial expressions.

Come on, you knew that video was coming.

[Big League Stew]

With the whole Miguel Cabrera saga taking form after a few days, we've seen countless opinions on what the Tigers should or should not do with him. While most posts have focused on helping Cabrera rehab from his second high-profile incident in two years, a scant few have suggested that the Tigers trade Cabrera.

An example of these aforementioned claims comes from SB Nation's Anaheim Angels site Halos Heaven.

With his stock pretty low as a Detroit Tiger

Because his .328/.420/.622, 38 HR, 126 RBI campaign in 2010 was absolutely dreadful...

should the Angels try to acquire the troubled slugger?

Go ahead. I bet Dave Dombrowski could use a laugh right now.

The meanest Venezuelan besides Hugo Chavez

Well played.

might enjoy a change of scenery

Where he'd be even more inclined to drink and party

and the tutelage of the bilingual Mike Scioscia.

Since when is a bilingual manager > a clubhouse full of his countrymen?

Cabrera is only 26 and was 2nd in the AL MVP voting last season.

...which is the exact reason why the Tigers shouldn't even think about trading him.

This isn't meant to bash Halos Heaven in the way that these Fire Joe Morgan-type posts usually do, but rather point out how ridiculous the idea of trading Cabrera really is. He is a once-in-a-generation talent that has a drinking problem. If the Tigers organization can't help him through this ordeal, I highly doubt anyone else can.

Spring Training is finally here, and that means one thing: meaningless fluff pieces from countless beat writers looking for anything to fill their quotas. Thankfully, Tom Gage came up with something worth reading (or looking at, to say the least).

Tigers n00b Victor Martinez turned heads when he showed up in a pimp-white Rolls Royce Ghost.

Not to be outdone, Justin Verlander rolled up in a red Ferrari 458 Italia.

So who's car is better? Check after the jump for the comparison.