Surprise, Ariz. ? Jose Lima will start for the Kansas City Royals on opening day April 4 at Detroit.

It will be the first season-opening start for the 32-year-old right-hander, and it will come in the city where his major-league career almost ended.

The Tigers cut him loose in September 2002, and he opened the 2003 season pitching for the Newark Bears, an independent minor-league team. Picked up by the Royals in June that year, he went 8-3 for Kansas City down the stretch.

But Lima, who won a career-best 21 games for Houston in 1999 before struggling the next two seasons and being traded to Detroit in mid-2001, insists he’s not looking for payback.

“Probably a couple of years ago, yeah,” he said Friday. “But I don’t carry any grudges any more. What happened, happened. It’s in the past.”

Lima can afford to be magnanimous. Since Kansas City signed him in June 2003, he has gone 21-8 and pitched in the postseason. He wasn’t offered a contract by the Royals after the 2003 season, making the Los Angeles Dodgers’ rotation in 2004 as a non-roster invitee to spring training.

Lima went 13-5 with a 4.07 earned-run average for the Dodgers and threw a shutout against St. Louis in the NL playoffs. The Royals re-signed him on Christmas Day to provide a veteran presence in their rotation.