Jeremy Bonderman worked this spring on honing his changeup at long last. Now, the Tigers are counting on him to help change up their fortunes of late.

History suggests they'll get it.

Though the histories of Bonderman and his changeup haven't had happy endings over the years, Bonderman's seasons have traditionally had very good beginnings. In the four seasons since he lost 19 games as a 20-year-old rookie up from Class A, Bonderman has had solid outings in his first start of each season.

Bonderman's past three seasons have opened with quality starts, and he fell one out shy of having one in 2004. Three of those were victories, the exception being last year's Opening Day loss to Roy Halladay and the Blue Jays.

Bonderman doesn't know why he has that kind of success when opening early, but he knows he feels that he can do it again.

"I feel ready," he said. "I don't feel I'm any more ready than I ever have been. I feel I'm ready to go. I'm going to go out and do what I can. Hopefully, I can go and have a good year. I've prepared myself and worked hard this year -- worked harder than I probably ever have."

The key to that, obviously, has been the changeup. It has been Bonderman's Spring Training project for the past several years, but he feels more comfortable with it now than he did in its previous renditions.

"I can throw it whenever I want," Bonderman said. "It's more a fact of believing in it and knowing I believe in it now, compared to what I used to. If you don't believe in a pitch, you're probably not going to throw it for strikes. I believe I can throw it for a strike and get a good result on it. It's just one of those things where you have to make yourself believe it."

Bonderman will throw it in any count, he believes, and he can throw it to right-handers and left-handers alike. He'd like to get 15 of them into his game by the time he's out.

The Tigers would also like to have a lead by then, but that'll be a team effort.

After losing Monday's season opener in extra innings, the Tigers were largely silent offensively against Brian Bannister and the Royals' bullpen on Wednesday afternoon. A loss on Thursday would give Kansas City its first sweep of Detroit since the Tigers lost their final three regular-season games of 2006 to fall out of the American League Central lead and into the AL Wild Card.

This one wouldn't have nearly that effect, but it would be a start the Tigers would rather avoid.

"You deal with it, what it is," Tigers manager Jim Leyland said of the offensive struggles, "because expectations are so high and everything. So every time you have a day like [Wednesday] or a couple days like that, you get off 0-2, people are going to start right away. That's to be expected. But that's part of the stuff you deal with. I mean, if this club doesn't hit, we might as well all go home. But I'm not worried about that.

"I think what you see is when guys make good pitches, they shut teams down. I don't care how good your offense is."

That's what the Royals are observing, too.

"As a staff now, we know they have a lot of expectations," Bannister said on Wednesday, "and we want to put a lot of pressure on them early in the season and just establish that we can play with them."

Pitching matchup
DET: RHP Jeremy Bonderman (11-9, 501 ERA in 2007)
For what it's worth anymore with an improved Royals club, Bonderman has more wins against Kansas City (nine) than against any other team in his career. He just about dominated them in 2007, posting a 1.80 ERA in 20 innings over three starts, one of them a victory and two others resulting in no-decisions.

KC: RHP Zack Greinke (7-3, 3.69 ERA in 2007)
Greinke is a different type of pitcher than Bannister and Gil Meche, Monday's starter, so it remains to be seen what he'll take from their success over the first two games. Still, Greinke has had plenty of success against Detroit in his own right, posting a 6-3 record and a 3.40 ERA over 13 career appearances, 10 of them starts.

Tidbits
The Tigers were shut out three times last season. Each time, they won their next game. ... Ivan Rodriguez is 8-for-18 with a home run and four RBIs for his career against Greinke. But then, he has more hits against the Royals than any other active Major Leaguer. ... Following Thursday's game, Leyland will head to Joe Louis Arena and drop the ceremonial first puck prior to the Red Wings' game against the Blue Jackets.

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Up next
• Friday: Tigers (Nate Robertson, 9-13, 4.76) vs. White Sox (Jose Contreras, 10-17, 5.57), 1:05 p.m. ET
• Saturday: Tigers (Dontrelle Willis, 10-15, 5.17) vs. White Sox (Gavin Floyd, 1-5, 5.27), 3:55 p.m. ET
• Sunday: Tigers (Justin Verlander, 0-0, 6.00) vs. White Sox (Mark Buehrle, 0-0, 37.80), 8:05 p.m. ET