Most impressive, however, was how easily he seemed to breeze through a 113-pitch workload. Millwood hadn't gone past 95 pitches in his three previous Rangers openers, and he's only gone past 113 pitches eight times in his Rangers career.

It seemed to be a strong endorsement for the "Nolan Ryan" conditioning program. Ryan, along with several members of the front office and coaching/training staff, challenged Millwood last September to lose weight and get better prepared for the season. Millwood took the challenge seriously.

"Coming out of spring training, I felt like I could do this, but I don't think I've felt like I could do it in years past," Millwood said. "Even after I came out of the game, I felt like I could go back out there after 115 pitches or whatever it was. That's a good sign. Conditioning made a huge difference."

Millwood took a shutout to the seventh, the longest a Rangers starter has taken an opening-day shutout since Charlie Hough pitched a complete game in 1989.

Millwood is 2-4 with a 3.34 EER in six career opening-day starts.

RANGERS 9, INDIANS 1: The Rangers broke a five-year opening-day losing streak by jumping on Cleveland lefty Cliff Lee early. The Rangers started a lineup that had a combined .417 career average against the 2008 Cy Young Award winner, and it responded with four runs in the second inning.

DH Hank Blalock started the rally with a dribbled infield single, and LF Marlon Byrd, starting in place of left-handed hitting OF David Murphy, doubled. Then two guys who had never faced Lee -- C Jarrod Saltalamacchia and rookie SS Elvis Andrus -- began a string of three consecutive two-out hits to account for the big inning.

It was the Rangers' biggest inning on opening day since a four-run fifth against Chicago in 2000.