Good news, bad news

The good news is Major League Baseball announced today that the Yankees will be part of the 2017 slate of Opening Day games on Sunday, April 2.

What could be the bad news?

They will be playing the Tampa Rays inside that hideous, monstrosity of a ballpark known as Tropicana Field. I know it will be early April and the weather in New York is unpredictable – we’ve seen cold temperatures and snow flurries there before on Opening Day – but no one wants to see the season begin with a game inside a dome, right? Probably not even Rays fans.

Two other games will open the season on that Sunday, including the Giants at Diamondbacks – yep, another dome game, and a yet-to-be announced game.

The rest of the Major League teams open the next day in potentially cold cities such as Baltimore, Boston, Cincinnati, Chicago, Minnesota, St. Louis and Washington, D.C. And, the Mets open the season that day in Citi Field.

So, why not open in Yankee Stadium, a far better and more pleasing to the eyes venue that the Trop?

By the way, the pinstriped Bronx Baby Bombers finish the 2017 regular season with a three-game series with the Blue Jays.

But, hey, we have a few weeks of Yankees baseball left in this season, and more, we hope, via the Bombers scratching and clawing their way into the wild card playoffs. So, we’ll save talk about the 2017 season for, umm, early November, give or take a few weeks.

Back to the present…
Today, the Yankees finish their three-game series with the Los Angeles Dodgers. At Yankees Stadium. Michael Pineda is scheduled to throw the first pitch at 4:05 p.m. The Dodgers took Monday’s game 8-2, and the Yankees rebounded Tuesday night with three solo home runs and a 3-0 win.

Here’s today’s Yankees starting lineup.

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