Snow postpones Royals, Tigers

K.C. off for third straight day

? The Tigers can only hope Tuesday’s postponement stops their momentum.

“When you are playing well, you want to get back on the field. When you are 0-6, you are a little less inclined to be out there,” Detroit bench coach Kirk Gibson said.

The Tigers’ game against Kansas City was called off because of six inches of snow and freezing rain a day earlier. The teams are scheduled to play today and Thursday.

Kansas City, which is 5-0, was rained out Sunday and off Monday.

“This takes away from our momentum — you know you will have days like this, but they are really starting to build up,” Royals third baseman Joe Randa said. “Our pitching has been great, which gives us a chance to win every game, and we’ve gotten enough big hits to win them. We’ve known all along that we were going to have to win with pitching and defense.”

Detroit has just six runs and 24 hits this season.

“The one thing in baseball is that you can never say you have seen it all,” new Tigers manager Alan Trammell said. “This is just an incredible, flat-out total team slump. It is testing us right out of the box, and I can see guys are pressing and trying to do too much. That will go away as soon as we win a game and win a series. That’s the goal right now.”

Trammell wasn’t in Detroit for last season’s 0-11 start, but many of his players were. The Tigers are only the third team in major league history with consecutive 0-6 starts, the first since the 1962-63 Mets began 0-9 and 0-8.

“It seems like every season, we get off to a horrible start,” infielder Shane Halter said. “Not just last year, but every year since I’ve been here. The start of the season is a big key, and we keep putting ourselves in a hole.”

Halter, though, disagreed with Gibson about wanting an extra day off.

“This does give guys a chance to get in the cage and work on some things, but you never want days off when you are struggling,” he said. “You want to get right back out there and end it.”

When: 12:05 p.m. today.Where: Comerica Park, Detroit.Television: None.Pitchers: Jeremy Affeldt (0-0) vs. Jeremy Bonderman (0-1).KC record: 5-0.

Some players were happy to be out of the subfreezing temperatures.

“I don’t know how people live here in the winter,” said Tigers center fielder Gene Kingsale, a native of Aruba. “You can get a little warm if you stand right next to the heater, but then you have to go away from it, and it is really, really cold.”

Some of the Royals agreed with Kingsale, even if it meant losing a little momentum.

“You want to keep things going out there, but it is just too cold,” Rontrez Johnson said. “I’m sure we can keep our intensity alive until tomorrow.”

The upper deck will be closed today due to snow and ice. Fans will be seated in lower-deck sections. No makeup date for the postponement was announced.