Yankees Vs. Tigers Opening Day

The New York Yankees are set to play the Detroit Tigers Thursday afternoon Opening Day of the 2011 baseball season. C.C. Sabathia will face off against Justin Verlander. The Yankees already released their lineup on Wednesday and it is Gardner, Jeter, Teixeira, Rodriguez, Cano, Swisher, Posada, Granderson, Martin. Jeter will bat leadoff against lefties and Gardner will move to number nine with Swisher in the 2 hole. Here are some other things on the night before the season begins. The teams will take Friday off and then play Saturday and Sunday afternoon. The pitching matchup for Saturday is A.J. Burnett vs. Brad Penny, it is a 4:10PM start on Fox. Phil Hughes will face Max Scherzer on Sunday at 1:05PM on the YES Network. The Yankees placed Pedro Feliciano on the 15 day DL and have added Luis Ayala to the roster. They also added Gustavo Molina to the roster. The Yankees bench consists of Eduardo Nunez, Eric Chavez, Andruw Jones and Molina. Ayala is the last man in the bullpen, that consists of Mariano Rivera, Rafael Soriano, Dave Robertson, Joba Chamberlain, Boone Logan and Bartolo Colon. The Yankees are scheduled to play 13 of their first 16 games at home, 20 of their first 28 and 48 of their first 82. The 18 April home games are the most in franchise history. Sabathia will make his third consecutive Opening Day start for the Yankees becoming the first Yankee to start as many in a row since Roger Clemens did so in 2001-03. He is one of 12 players in franchise history to start three or more Opening Days. The Yankees three scheduled starters in the series are a combined 22-14 in their careers against the Detroit Tigers. The Yankees were 95-67 last season and finished one game behind Tampa Bay for the division. They were the AL wild card sweeping the Minnesota Twins in the ALDS but losing in six games to the Texas Rangers in the ALCS. The Yankees have reached the postseason 15 of the past 16 years. The Yankees begin their third season of play in this Yankee Stadium. They own the most home wins and best regular season home winning percentage in the majors since the stadium opened in 2009. They are 109-53 over that span. The 109 wins are the most by a ML team in its first two seasons at a particular venue. The previous mark was 106. The Yankees last season led the majors with a 988 fielding percentage. They committed a major league low 69 errors. It was the Yankees all time highest fielding percentage and fewest errors in a non strike year.