Well it's still not opening day quite yet, but close enough to talk about it. Let's just run through some interesting series' that are going to be played starting Sunday.

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The 2009 season will be kicked off Sunday night. Opening night and our first look at real, meaningful (with all respect to the World Baseball Classic) baseball come from the Braves and Phillies. Sunday night will feature Derek Lowe against Brett Myers. Cole Hamels was initially penciled in to open the season for his team, but elbow problems have pushed his first start back. Games 2 and 3 of this series will feature Javier Vasquez and Jair Jurrjens for the Braves, facing up against Jamie Moyer and Joe Blanton for the Phillies (I'm not quite sure on the return date for Hamels, he very well could be pitching game 3 for them). Of these two teams, I like the Phillies a lot more for the whole season, but the Braves definitely have the pitching to compete. Atlanta fans are anxious to see their two new acquisitions toe the rubber for the first time, and I don't think they will be disappointed. I'll take the Braves to win 2/3 in this series.

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An instant rematch of the ALCS here. James Shields and the Rays will head into Fenway Park to try and pick up where they left off against the Red Sox and beat them once again in Boston. BJ Upton will not be there for the game though, he won't join the team until 6 games into the season when they play for their game at the Trop. The Rays jumped out to a hot start last year, and I see no reason why they can't repeat that performance this year. The pitching matchups will look something like this : Shields vs. Beckett, Kazmir vs. Lester, and Garza vs. Matsusaka. I'm not sure you're going to find another group of pitching matchups in this first week then that. That's definitely a series I will be watching (on the beautiful MLB.TV premium player). I'll take the Red Sox winning 2/3.

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The New York Yankees are the most attention craving and scrutinized team in the great game of baseball, and that always holds true on opening day. This year that will be even more so than usual. With C.C. Sabathia making his debut in Baltimore on Monday, and the much anticipated first game in the New Yankee Stadium, the Yankees will be the talk of the league for a big part of this week. Other new names to watch out for on the Yankees are AJ Burnett, who will start game 2 of the series, Nick Swisher, Brett Gardner, and of course Mark Teixeira. Something tells me Teixeira isn't going to be as great as everyone expects this year. The Orioles are a young team to watch out for, although they will end up just getting the shaft, will (possibly) a good record, but never with a chance to make the playoffs, just because the 3 best teams in the AL are in their division. I will go ahead and take the Orioles to sweep the Yankees, maybe that's wishful thinking, but we'll stick with it.