Skubal on Opening Day<\/a> comes as no surprise after his emergence as the staff ace. Pairing him with Valdez immediately after adds another dependable arm capable of eating innings and keeping Detroit in games.<\/p>\nAdvertisement<\/p>\n
But the spotlight will clearly be on Verlander.<\/p>\n
The future Hall of Famer returning to Detroit, and doing so at Comerica Park, adds an emotional and competitive edge to the early part of the season. His scheduled start on April 5 against St. Louis is already shaping up to be one of the most anticipated games of the year.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Flaherty and Mize round out the early rotation, giving the Tigers flexibility as they navigate the first turn through the schedule.<\/p>\n
Big Picture<\/p>\n
With the rotation now mapped out, the Tigers are signaling confidence in their pitching staff heading into the season.<\/p>\n
Valdez provides stability<\/p>\n
Verlander brings experience and star power<\/p>\n
Flaherty and Mize add depth and upside<\/p>\n
If this group performs to expectations, Detroit could have the foundation needed to compete early and often in 2026.<\/p>\n
Advertisement<\/p>\n
And with Verlander\u2019s return looming, the energy around this team is only building.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Detroit Tigers are beginning to finalize their plan for the opening week of the 2026 season, and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":555403,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2386],"tags":[40216,5,399,7214,147,53,2583,33874,79,81310,84,388,4,673,67,382,594],"class_list":["post-634349","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-detroit-tigers","tag-2026-season","tag-baseball","tag-casey-mize","tag-comerica-park","tag-detroit","tag-detroit-tigers","tag-detroittigers","tag-evan-petzold","tag-framber-valdez","tag-highly-anticipated","tag-jack-flaherty","tag-justin-verlander","tag-mlb","tag-st-louis","tag-st-louis-cardinals","tag-tarik-skubal","tag-tigers"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116263985455093422","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/634349","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=634349"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/634349\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/555403"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=634349"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=634349"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=634349"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Detroit](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/144cb038c2042070f67b405894bee500.jpeg\"\/)
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