Welcome to Opening Day, Part III -- and hopefully it's more like Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade and less like Godfather III. If you want to split hairs, today is the first dayof baseball in the United States, so there's that.
So what's on tap? Seven big-league games featuring the likes of Justin Verlander, Roy Halladay and Clayton Kershaw. You also have the returns of Stephen Strasburg and Johan Stantana. There's the debut of the newly minted Red for life Joey Votto in Cincinnati, the Marlins breaking out their road uniforms and the Toronto Blue Jays back in blue.
Like Matt said in a couple of more words yesterday, there's nothing quite like baseball and we've got plenty of baseball to watch today.
| Opening Day |
Here's the full schedule of today's games (with starters' 2011 stats unless otherwise noted):
Red Sox at Tigers, 1:05 p.m. ET
Jon Lester (15-9, 3.47) vs. Justin Verlander (24-5, 2.40)
Braves at Mets, 1:10 p.m. ET
Tommy Hanson (11-7, 3.60 ERA) vs. Johan Santana (11-9, 2.98 in 2010)
Phillies at Pirates, 1:35 p.m. ET
Roy Halladay (19-6, 2.35) vs. Erik Bedard (5-9, 3.62)
Nationals at Cubs, 2:20 p.m. ET
Stephen Strasburg (1-1, 1.50) vs. Ryan Dempster (10-14, 4.80)
Blue Jays at Indians, 3:05 p.m. ET
Ricky Romero (15-11, 2.92) vs. Justin Masterson (12-10, 3.21)
Marlins at Reds, 4:05 p.m. ET
Mark Buehrle (13-9, 3.59) vs. Johnny Cueto (9-5, 2.31)
Dodgers at Padres, 7:05 p.m. ET
Clayton Kershaw (21-5, 2.28) vs. Edinson Volquez (5-7, 5.71)
CBSSports.com will have you covered with our Opening Day coverage --
In addition, we'll have writers at three of the seven games, Danny Knobler (@DKnobler) at Comerica Park for the Red Sox and Tigers, I'll (@ctrent) be at Great American Ball the Reds-Marlins and Scott Miller (@ScottMCBS) will be at Petco Park for the Dodgers and Padres and the rest of the Eye on Baseball (@EyeOnBaseball) crew will be watching all the games and talking about it at Opening Day Live.
So sit back, call in sick and celebrate yet another Opening Day -- and while you're at it, tell them you're sick Friday too, so you can catch the fourth installment of opening day -- better safe than sorry.