The last opening game takes place this afternoon as the San Diego Padres travel to San Francisco to take on the Giants. Bruce Bochy manages against a team he knows well, although there are plenty of new faces in the Padres dugout. It's ace against ace as Jake Peavy faces Barry Zito. Jake seems to be recovered from a shoulder problem that caused his ERA in 2006 to be half a run higher than his career average. He racked up plenty of strikeouts during spring training. Zito gets to face pitchers regularly for the first time in his career. We'll see if his strikeout number go up this season as a result.

And Barry Bonds begins his chase of Henry Aaron's all-time home run record. Barry's popped three dingers off Peavy in 28 at bats, somewhat better than Bonds' career home run rate. I wonder how the fans of San Francisco (his biggest supporters) will react to him since the amphetamine revelations of the winter time?

As other teams number two pitchers take the mound, I can't say I'm all that impressed. The Hernandez brothers both pitch, with Orlando and the Mets facing Kip Wells and the Cardinals. Kip suffered from a blood clot in 2006, limiting him to nine unspectacular starts. Of course, he was also unspectacular in 2004 and 2005. Orlando Hernandez had his health problems, too. Don't expect him to go deep in games, especially with a shortened spring training.

Livan Hernandez leads the Diamondbacks against the Rockies and Jeff Francis. The move to the Diamondbacks seemed to rejuvenate Livan a bit as he managed to give Arizona almost an inning more per start than he did with Washington. Francis almost met my Cy Young qualification last year (any Rockies pitcher with an ERA under 4.00 deserves a vote for the award) with a 4.16 ERA. He was particularly good at home in 2006, posting a low 4.30 ERA at the tough pitcher's park.

Enjoy!