Cleveland Indians Series Preview: Tribe Set To Open 2021 In Detroit

The 2021 Cleveland Indians face off against the Detroit Tigers to open the season. New faces and two teams with similar young cores look to get off to a strong start.

Baseball is back! We’re previewing the opening series of the 2021 season which will feature the Cleveland Indians opening up at Comerica Park against the Detroit Tigers.

Both teams come in with goals to surprise outside pundits and lean on their younger pitching staffs to lead them in the new season.

For the Indians, we’ll get to see what their lineup will look like now that Francisco Lindor is no longer part of the top three. In addition, questions about the starting options at centerfield will begin to be answered. There will be a committee approach to the outfield, but on the Lindor front, the replacement is Andres Gimenez who was the prized piece coming back to Cleveland from the trade with the Mets.

The Indians and Tigers both have younger arms in their rotations to boost them this year. For the Indians, there are questions in the bullpen. This series will be the first glance at a closer by committee, something we haven’t seen under Francona yet. A manager who’s pretty methodical with his bullpen arms and predictable, now becomes a bit unpredictable until the bullpen can settle into their roles.

On the filp side the Tigers have former Astros manager AJ Hinch at the helm. Hinch will be managing for the first time since Game 7 of the 2019 World Series when he was manager of the Houston Astros.  Detroit won’t wow you offensively, but they do have some high-end prospects filling out the back-end of their rotation.

Offensively they appear to have a ways to go. They still have a familiar face in Miguel Cabrera who will be playing first base more this year at the age of 38. Cabrera has played the Indians well in his career, and he won’t be fresher in 2021 than he is on opening weekend.

Lets take a look at the 3-games in closer detail with the projected starters.