DETROIT -- Mother Nature greeted the Tigers back home with a drenching Friday night, postponing their series opener against the Mariners at Comerica Park.
The game will be made up with a back-to-back doubleheader Saturday, beginning with the originally scheduled game at 4:10 p.m. ET. The second game will begin about 30 minutes after the first game ends.
Matthew Boyd, who was scheduled to start Friday, will start Game 1 on Saturday, and Michael Fulmer will start Game 2. The Mariners will counter with Marco Gonzales in Game 1, and Felix Hernandez in the nightcap.
Tickets for Saturday are good for both games. Tickets for Friday can be exchanged for any similar or lesser-priced game in the next 12 months, excluding Opening Day 2019.
Friday marks the eighth time this season the Tigers have been postponed due to weather, including makeup games. They had seven of them over the season's first four weeks thanks to the wintry weather that gripped the Midwest for much of April before settling into a stretch of favorable conditions the past couple weeks.
Friday's weather was not favorable at all, from temperatures that never crept out of the 40s, to rain that settled in around mid-afternoon and stuck around well into the evening.
"It's tough," Tigers manager Ron Gardenhire said Friday afternoon. "You come home and have a day off yesterday, and you'd like to get on the field and work out, but we couldn't do that today."
Friday's rainout could leave the Tigers needing a spot starter if Jordan Zimmermann isn't ready to pitch when he's eligible to be activated from the 10-day disabled list on Wednesday. Detroit is already set to use reliever Blaine Hardy in a spot start Sunday. Daniel Norris, who had been Detroit's spot starter through April, is out until the end of June following a procedure to alleviate pressure on his groin muscle.