Snow not helping, but Comerica to be re-sodded

LAKELAND, Fla. -- Long before the first snowflake fell in Michigan this winter, the Tigers had planned to re-sod the playing surface at Comerica Park for the first time since 2007. Now that Detroit is on the verge of breaking its record snowfall for a winter season, having just witnessed eight more inches fall on Wednesday, the question is whether the new grass will be in the ground before Opening Day on March 31.

The answer from the Tigers is yes. It won't be as easy as head groundskeeper Heather Nabozny and her crew would've liked it, but it'll happen.

"There will be a playing field on Opening Day," Tigers vice president of communications Ron Colangelo said Thursday.

The old sod was removed ahead of the Hockeytown Winter Festival in December, which brought outdoor hockey to the park over the holidays. Nabozny said a couple of weeks later that the new sod would be installed in March, and that they could do so even if the spring thaw hadn't arrived yet. They would have to do so in segments, rather than all at once.

The plan goes into place next week when the sod arrives from Colorado. The re-sodding is scheduled to begin next Thursday and last three days. That will give the field a little over a week to take root before Opening Day.

As for Thursday evening, the forecast for next weekend in Detroit calls for temperatures in the low 40s.

LAKELAND, Fla. -- Don Kelly spent years of his Tigers tenure with the reputation as a Jim Leyland favorite. It's a new era of leadership in Detroit these days, but Kelly seems to be making some of the same impressions on new manager Brad Ausmus.

"The thing I didn't know about Don Kelly is, one, he's got some baseball savvy to him," Ausmus said Thursday. "He knows what he's doing on the bases. We talked about his versatility, but I don't know that I realized what type of outfielder he really was and what type of arm he had.

"I'm certainly learning things about Don Kelly that I didn't know. I knew he was a valuable utility guy that you could put in many spots with a left-handed bat, but so far he's been much better than my initial thoughts or projections were. And he's a great guy, great teammate to boot. They don't really have ratings that put a number of that."

Whether those impressions earn Kelly a share of the left-field mix at season's open remains to be seen. As Ausmus looks for a left-handed hitter to plug into left field with Andy Dirks out until June, that insight is worth noting. It doesn't mean Kelly will comprise the lefty half of the left-field platoon, but if the Tigers end up filling Dirks' absence from within, Kelly looks bound to get some starts.

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Snow not helping, but Comerica to be re-sodded