Lakeland, Fla. — It’s a peculiar time for Opening Day — Oct. 14.
But the first inter-team duel in 2020 for Tigers minor-leaguers was to begin against the Blue Jays at 1 p.m. Wednesday at Publix Field at Joker Marchant Stadium as the Tigers Instructional League, a week after convening, was to shift into an actual game-setting.
Tigers minor-leaguers were just warming up for 2020 in March when their season was zapped by COVID-19’s infiltration of the TigerTown complex as it lay siege on an entire world.
Apart from a handful of top prospects who worked with the Tigers' big-league and taxi-squad teams at Detroit and Toledo, the brunt of Detroit’s farm talent was left to work out on its own, mostly from home bases, until instructional camp began last week.