Call them phrases or clauses or whatever, but if you open a sentence with a "phrase" of longer than four words, you should find the end of it and stick a comma. The comma will most likely occur right before the subject and verb of the sentence. Here are some examples:
On the Friday night before last, Kevin went to Chicago with his new friends.
Whenever I think of my college days, I get a little embarrassed.
By the time they got to the front of the line, all the cake was gone.
Because no one else would do it, Randy volunteered to clean the bathrooms.
Flying for over an hour in the middle of a storm, the pilot remained calm and in control.
Notice how in each example you could put the phrase after the main sentence so that it would read "Kevin went to Chicago with his new friends on the Friday night before last." Look at these examples rewritten in another post because four out of five don't get commas if the phrase is found at the end. But when you flip the order and put the cart before the horse, like in the examples above, always stick a comma after the phrase. If the phrase is four words or shorter, the comma is optional and used when it helps to clarify the meaning.
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