The Detroit Tigers now know what their 2027 spring slate is supposed to look like, even if the calendar might not cooperate.
Major League Baseball released the spring training schedules for all 30 teams on Friday, and Detroit is set to open at home against the Philadelphia Phillies on Feb. 19. The Tigers are scheduled to get three days off during camp - March 1, March 18 and March 22 - and they also have one split squad date on Feb. 26, when they’ll host the Miami Marlins and visit the Toronto Blue Jays in Dunedin, Fla.
There’s plenty packed into the schedule. Detroit has two stretches of back-to-back road games: March 2-3 against the Houston Astros and the Miami Marlins, and March 14-15 against the Minnesota Twins and the Boston Red Sox. The Tigers also have back-to-back home games on March 10-11 against the Tampa Bay Rays and the New York Yankees, plus another pair at home March 19-20 against the Minnesota Twins and the New York Yankees.
The final days of camp include a couple of exhibition games at Tropicana Field. After breaking camp on March 20 following the Yankees game, the Tigers are scheduled to face the Rays on March 21 and again on March 23.
Then comes the regular season, with Detroit slated to return home, take one day off and open on March 25 against the Chicago White Sox. That starts a three-game series, followed by an off day the next day and then a three-game home set against the Cleveland Guardians.
All of that, though, sits against a bigger question: whether spring training starts on time at all. MLB and the MLB Players’ Association are still working on a new collective bargaining agreement, and the two sides remain far apart.
If there’s no deal by Dec. 1, owners are expected to lock out players. That leaves next February and March in doubt, even if the schedule itself has now been released.
There is still some optimism for a deal, but not much. The situation is a lot less encouraging than the 2021-22 offseason, when the sides managed to reach an agreement in time for the regular season to begin on schedule.
Owners want to install a salary cap, and the players are opposed. The last time owners pushed for one in 1994-95, the effort collapsed after replacement players were used in an attempt to begin the regular season without unionized MLB players.
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Brieske has already started using the curveball in games, which gives this stretch a little more weight than a routine repertoire tweak. For a reliever trying to show he can be dependable in a crucial part of the season, the pitch is part of a larger push to prove his best version is still in there, and to make every outing count while the Tigers watch closely. [Read more 🡒]