This is a 9* play on the Tigers.

It's opening day. For the most part over the first two weeks, I'm basing my selections on starting pitching. That's not enitrely what we look at, but until we can get a good luck at each team, each pitcher and get a "feel" for what's going on, this is the approach that we take.

Detorit's hungry. It's gone through four years of rebuilding and it'll be eager to get things started off on the right foot.

Detroit stater Matt Boyd had a down year last season, but he had a fantastic Spring, posting a 2.45 ERA with 19 K's over 18 1/3's innings of work.

Shane Bieber was 8-1 with a 1.63 ERA last year. It's going to be hard for Bieber to duplicate that record with the change in format again as far as scheduling in our opinion.

We expect Boyd to match Bieber inning for inning and in a situation like that, we believe the value swings to the undervalued underdog.

The play is Detroit.

Good luck, NP