It was a cold, rainy day in the New York area. Some even wondered if there would be baseball in the Bronx on Thursday with the gray skies looming above.
But that wouldn't stop 50,000 faithful Yankee fans from coming out Thursday afternoon to turn out for the 2011 Opening Day game between the Yankees and the Tigers.
CC Sabathia would be starting his third consecutive Opening Day for the Yankees while the Tigers would counter with their ace in Justin Verlander.
Both pitchers at times didn't have their best stuff, but at other times, they looked very tough to hit.
The Tigers cracked the scoreboard first in the top of the second when Jhonny Peralta hit a sacrifice fly to center field to score Miguel Cabrera, which put Detroit up 1-0.
Verlander had the Yankees swinging and missing for the first two innings, but in the bottom of the third with two on, Mark Teixeira cranked out his first home run of the season into the second deck in right field to put the Yankees up 3-1.
Detroit cut the score to 3-2 with an RBI single from Brandon Inge in the top of the fourth and then tied the game up with a sac fly by Cabrera in the top of the fifth.
Both Verlander and Sabathia were able to keep their respective teams in the game and both left the game with the game tied.
Verlander went six innings, allowed three hits, three runs, walked four and struck out eight.
Sabathia also went six innings, allowed six hits, three runs, walked two and struck out seven.
Following Sabathia was Joba Chamberlain, who pitched a very strong and scoreless seventh inning.
Following Verlander was former Yankees reliever Phil Coke, who allowed a solo home run to the first batter he faced in 2011, Curtis Granderson, which allowed the Yankees to retake the lead 4-3 in the bottom of the seventh.
Russell Martin reached on an error and moved to second on Brett Gardner's sac bunt, then to third on a wild pitch by Ryan Perry.
Derek Jeter hit an RBI sac fly to center to score Martin to make the game 5-3.
In the top of the eighth, making his Yankee debut, Rafael Soriano pitched very well in a scoreless inning.
In the bottom of the eighth, it was more trouble for the Tigers bullpen, as Nick Swisher hit an RBI single off Daniel Schlereth, making it 6-3.
Mariano Rivera came into the ninth and shut the door on Detroit to preserve the 6-3 win for the Yankees,
Chamberlain (1-0) picked up the win for the Yankees, while Coke (0-1) took the loss.
In the beginning, it looked like the Yankees might get stumped by Verlander, who had his fastball working and had the Yankee batters swinging and missing. But he did get into too many deep counts and walked four guys.
When he put two on in the third, he had to throw Teixeira strikes and Tex made Verlander pay for them.
On the other side, Sabathia was able to dance out of danger at times. In the top of the second, he loaded the bases with one out and escaped with giving up only one run.
He never gave up the big hit, just a couple of sacrifice flies and one RBI hit. Aside from that, Sabathia was able to grind his way through six innings with no major damage.
The Yankees bullpen was as good as advertised with Chamberlain, Soriano and Rivera all pitching the final three innings with no runs allowed.
That wasn't the case for Detroit, as the bullpen faltered once Verlander left the game.
On the offense, aside from the big hits from Teixeira and Granderson, nobody really stood out as the Yankees only got five hits in the game, but made their hits count, especially with runners on base.
Overall, you can't complain about the win because it was the first game and getting the first win out of the way is always a good thing, and now the season is under way the players can now start to get into a rhythm.
The Yankees and Tigers will pick up the series on Saturday when A.J. Burnett will go for the Yankees and Brad Penny will pitch for Detroit.
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