THE FLYING TIGERS (2-0, 2011 Season: 64-74) ... Lakeland opened the 2012 season with an 8-5 win over Tampa behind three hits each by Tyler Collins and Avisail Garcia. Daniel Fields, James Robbins and James McCann contributed two hits a piece while Fields and Dixon Machado both drove in a pair of runs. Alex Burgos struck out five and held Tampa to four hits thru six innings to record the win. Last night, Nick Castellanos doubled with two outs to drive in Fields to break a 2-2 tie and then scored on a ground rule double by Collins for the final 4-2 score.
THE YANKEES (0-2, 2011 Season: 74-64) ... Nik Turley struck out nine Flying Tigers in five innings in the season opener while Kelvin Clark had two hits. Zach Wilson collected three hits last night while JR Murphy had two hits.
PROBABLE STARTERS ... Lefty Brian Flynn is expected to take the mound for Lakeland tonight with Jose Ramirez getting the call for Tampa.
Flynn was 7-2 at West Michigan in 2011 with a 3.46 ERA. He struck out 57 while walking 23 in 67.2 innings. A seventh-round pick in 2011 out of Wichita State University, Flynn was named the 24th best prospect in the Tigers organization in 2011 by Baseball America.
Ramirez was 0-5 with an 8.14 ERA in six games for Tampa last season after going 5-7 with a 4.90 ERA in 17 games for Charleston, the Yankee’s low-A club in the South Atlantic League. Signed as non-drafted free agent by the Yankees in 2007, Ramirez was named the Short-Season Starting Pitcher of the Year in 2010 by MLB.com after recording 105 strikeouts in 115.0 innings for Charleston.
LAST SEASON ... Tampa took 13 of the 20 games played in the series in 2011 including 10 of the last 14 games, but only four of the last seven meetings. Lakeland won the 2011 season finale with a 3-2 win on Sept. 4.
PERFECT START ... Lakeland has a chance to start the season with a 3-0 record, something the franchise has not done since opening the 2002 season with three wins. Those three wins were hard-fought victories, taking the season opener over Daytona with a 12-11 win in ten innings, followed by an 11-inning win the next night against the Cubs by a 6-5 score. The one-run wins continued the third game as Lakeland posted a 7-6 victory over Brevard County. Close games were the norm at the start of the 2002 season as each of the first seven games were decided by a single tally.
HOME OPENERS ... Lakeland opened the 2011 season at home with a 7-5 win over Tampa, their fourth straight win in a home opener.
OPENING DAY CROWDS ... Last season’s home lid-lifter drew 1,789 fans. The 2009 home opener pulled in 2,224 fans, the largest home crowd in the last eight seasons.
THIS ISN’T SO HARD ... Tyler Collins has found the transition from the New York-Penn League to the Florida State League a bit on the easy side so far. The former sixth-round pick by Detroit out of Howard College in 2011 has had three hits in each of his first two games. He also scored twice in his first game and drove in a pair of runs in his second outing, including an insurance run on a ground-rule double in the 10th. The six hits in two games gives him a .667 average, good for third in the league in the early going.
NEW YEAR, SAME PROBLEM ... Lakeland had three batters finish 1-2-3 for most strikeouts in the FSL last season and the club had the fifth most whiffs in the league. In the first two games, the Flying Tigers have been sent down swinging 20 times.
CLOSE TO THE HEART ... Nick Castellanos was named the 2011 recipient of the Ryan DeWitt Minor League Player Award by TigsTown.com. The award is named for the former Lakeland bat boy who passed away in 2002.
LONG WAY FROM HOME ... Flying Tiger Alex Burgos was born in Regensburg, Germany. The Lakeland pitcher is aiming to become the sixth German-born player to make his major league debut in the 2000s – the last was Jeff Baker in 2005.
SHOW TIME ... Nick Castellanos, Tyler Collins, Patrick Cooper, Matt Crouse, Daniel Fields, Avisail Garcia, Wade Gaynor, Dixon Machado, James McCann, Hernan Perez, James Robbins, Bruce Rondon, and Jacob Turner all saw some action in 2012 Spring Training games for Detroit.
BEEN THERE, DONE THAT ... Justin Verlander and Rick Porcello are two examples of recent players that played for Lakeland one season and played the next campaign for Detroit. However, Flying Tiger Jacob Turner is on the other side of that case as the former 1st-rounder pitched 12.2 innings for the big league club in 2011. A bout with tendonitis in his throwing shoulder derailed this year’s Spring Training for Turner.
GOOD BLOODLINES ... Kevin Eichhorn is the son of Mark Eichhorn, who played 11 years in the majors for the Blue Jays, Braves, Angels and Orioles; Daniel Fields is the son of former Tiger outfielder and coach, Bruce Fields, who also played for the Mariners; and Mark Sorensen is the son of Lary Sorensen, who pitched for the Brewers, Cardinals, Indians, Athletics, Cubs, Expos and Giants.
JUAN I and JUAN II ... Reminiscent of the Juan Brothers in Minor League III: Back to the Minors, Lakeland has one-half of the Luis A. Sanz brothers in catcher Luis Alberto Sanz. His brother, Luis Angel Sanz, is a pitcher for the West Michigan club. On July 5, 2010, the two appeared as battery mates for the Whitecaps.
CLOSING IN ON 1700 ... Flying Tiger manager Dave Huppert is in his second season with Lakeland and his 24th season as a minor league manager. He brings a 1,672-1,535 record into 2012.
BACK IN THE FOLD ... Lakeland has a new coach this season in the uniform of Mike Maroth, who is in his first season as a professional coach. Maroth played for six seasons in Detroit with a 50-62 career record in 143 starts. Maroth, who originally was a third-round pick of Boston in 1998, was 2-1 with a 3.24 ERA for Lakeland in 1990.
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