LAKELAND, Fla. -- No one needs to get carried away after the spring opener.
That doesn't mean it wasn't fun for the Tigers to beat the Baltimore Orioles, 15-2, Tuesday afternoon at Joker Marchant Stadium.
Kyle Lobstein, Alberto Cabrera, Tom Gorzelanny, Joe Nathan, Josh Zeid, Luke Putkonen, Rafael Dolis and Alex Wilson all threw, with only Wilson allowing the two runs.
The hitting stars were Ian Kinsler with a three-run home run, Yoenis Cespedes with a grand slam and Aaron Westlake with a three run home run.
Cespedes has hit between 22 and 26 home runs in each of his last three seasons.
"He's a strong man," Tigers manager Brad Ausmus said. "He's going to do that every once in a while. I'm hoping he does it often."
Kinsler wasn't disappointed either.
"When you get your first hit out of the way, your first ground ball out of the way -- I accomplished both of those in the first two days, so it's always nice to get that out of the way," he said. "Then you just go to fine tuning whatever you felt during those at-bats.
"You're constantly trying to work to lead up to the season, so the results right now aren't really that important. Just trying to fine tune best I can."
Ausmus also liked the way James McCann threw out a runner and how Hernan Perez looked in left field.
"We scored a lot more runs than we had hits," Ausmus said. "We got some hits. We got some big hits -- Westlake, Kinsler, Cespedes. Defense was really pretty solid. Pitching was pretty good. It was a good first day."
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COMPLETE TIGERS SPRING TRAINING 2015 COVERAGE
