Baseball Games Are Here! Five Spring Training Games Today! Other Shouts of Excitement!

It’s here! The 2017 MLB season!

… well, kinda. It’s the start of the Spring Training slate of games, and although the games don’t count in the regular season standings, they are actual baseball games featuring actual baseball players. Given how dramatically high the 2016 season ended, it’s been an almost unbearable wait for baseball to get back underway.

There are five big league games on tap today (times ET):

  • Orioles @ Tigers 1:05 PM in Lakeland, FL
  • Mets @ Red Sox 1:05 PM in Ft. Myers, FL
  • Phillies @ Yankees 1:05 PM in Tampa, FL (available on YES Network and MLB.tv)
  • Reds @ Giants 3:05 PM in Scottsdale, AZ
  • Rays @ Twins 7:05 PM in Fort Myers, FL
  • [adinserter block=”1″]

    As always, early Spring Training games feature a load of prospects and depth veterans getting the bulk of the playing time, but regulars will also be making appearances, especially in the first few innings. For me, though, I actually get excited about seeing the youngsters playing alongside big league stars – it’s something we don’t always get to see in the regular season, so it’s fun right now when the games don’t “count.”

    Then, as the games go on, more and more regulars filter in, which builds the excitement to the start of the regular season. Camp battles are settled and rosters are locked in. In that way, Spring Training is something of a perfect mechanism for building up the hype for the regular season in a slow burn over the next month. And it all begins today.

    Ah. Baseball is back.

    Make sure you like Baseball is Fun on Facebook to follow along with the best and most delightful moments this season!

    written by

    Brett Taylor is the Lead Cubs Writer at Bleacher Nation, and you can find him on Twitter at @BleacherNation and on LinkedIn here. Brett is also the founder of Bleacher Nation, which opened up shop in 2008 as an independent blog about the Chicago Cubs. Later growing to incorporate coverage of other Chicago sports, Bleacher Nation is now one of the largest regional sports blogs on the web.

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