After long last, Opening Day has finally arrived. And what a better way to celebrate than with one of the best rivalries in baseball as the San Francisco Giants head to Chavez Revine to face the Los Angeles Dodgers. The Giants begin their quest to repeat as World Series champions as the Dodgers, led by new manager Don Mattingley, are looking to get back to the playoffs for the first time since 2008.
This opening four game series should prove to be a good test for the Giants out of the gate as tonight's matchup with be a battle of the aces as Tim Lincecum is set to take the mound for the Giants and Clayton Kershaw for the Dodgers. First pitch is scheduled for 5:00 p.m. tonight on ESPN, but CSN Bay Area will be having Giants coverage most of the day, so make sure to tune in to really get yourself ready for some opening day action.
Tomorrow will have a matchup with the lefty Jonathan Sanchez and the righty Chad Billingsley, another great matchup of young arms. That game is scheduled for a 7:10 p.m. start with coverage on CSN-Bay Area. Saturday will be Matt Cain on the mound for the Giants facing Ted Lilly. This will be a 1:10 p.m. game with coverage on FOX. Sunday will be the closing game of the series with Madison Bumgarner versus Hiroki Kurdoa with a starting time of 5:00 p.m, coverage on ESPN2. With all the jumping around between networks, make sure you can keep them all straight to catch all the action.
How will Brandon Belt do in the majors? Will Juan Uribe impact this series against his former squad? How will the bullpen fare without Brian Wilson? All these questions and more will be answered, starting tonight.
In other Giants news Barry Zito was in a car accident last night is Los Angeles, but was relatively unharmed as he was check in at a hospital there an released rather quickly. His status to pitch is stil uncertain.
For more Giants discussion and analysis head over to McCovey Chronicles to get your fix.