Updates: Wednesday -- St. Louis Cardinals v. Miami Marlins: Kyle Lohse ruined the Marlins&apos; debut in their new stadium while pitching the Cardinals to a 4-1 win. Crushing.
MLB Opening Day is finally here. Officially, anyways. Well, kind of.
The season opener was, of course, last week, when the Oakland A&apos;s and the Seattle Mariners played a pair of games in Japan. But baseball is the all-American sport, and any "opening games" not in America, thus, do not really count as opening games.
Discluding the Japan soft opener, Opening Day features the marquee game between the defending world champions St. Louis Cardinals play the Miami Marlins, who recently changed their name from the "Florida Marlins" and moved into their sparkely new ballpark. The Marlins are expected to be ony of the best teams in 2012, and will introduce new stars Jose Reyes and Heath Bel. New Cardinals manager Mike Matheny will have his hands full.
The season goes into full swing after that. As Michael Rosenberg in Sports Illustrated neatly explains, "The next day, there are seven more games. And Friday there are nine more...."
Below is this week&apos;s slate of games, and some tidbits on the big ones.
Try not to skip out on work too much.
Boston Red Sox vs. Detroit Tigers (4/5, 1:05 p.m. ET) - The Red Sox will look to redeem themselves after a massive 2011 late season collapse, after which GM Theo Epstein and manager Terry Francona were fired.
New York Yankees vs. Tampa Bay Rays (4/6, 3:10 p.m. ET) - This game will feature what will likely be the two best AL East teams. C.C. Sabathia and James Shields wil take the mound for the opener.