Evening shade: The debut of Yu Darvish

Some weekday evenings, the Stew looks at the happenings that will be worth monitoring that night. Feel free to discuss the night's action in the comments below.

• Yu ready for a night filled with bad puns? Well, too bad because the Texas Rangers are trotting Yu Darvish out for his first big league start in the regular season and Twitter is going to full of people like me unsuccessfully landing one-liners. The big Japanese righty gets the benefit of starting his career against the Seattle Mariners at 8:05 , but we'll see how much of a luxury that actually is. The M's average more than six runs a game over their four opening contests with Oakland and will be looking to go 4-1 for the first time since 2001.

• Ryan Braun's first road start: And it comes at Wrigley Field. The reigning NL MVP is sure to be booed and perhaps it'll be more interesting to see how Aramis Ramirez is received in his return to the North Side. Always a producer, but never the big fan favorite, Ramirez and the Cubs reached a natural fork in the road when the slugger was going to command way too much money for the Cubs' purposes. This one can really go either way so prepare for reports to use words like "mixed" and "smattering."

• Yankees look for their first win: Against undefeated Baltimore, no less! You heard it here first: This sucker is over if Brian Matusz and the O's can extend their lead over New York to four games. Yes, Ivan Nova is the only thing standing between us and every media outlet in the world noting that it's been 39 years since the Yankees started a season 0-4.

• Drew Storen's health: The Washington Nationals closer is headed to see Dr. James Andrews for a further examination of what the team suspects are bone chips in his elbow.

• Matt Kemp's appearance on Conan: If the Los Angeles Dodgers star thought finishing second in NL MVP voting was motivating, wait until Mr. Hollywood is forced to follow a Glee "star" in Conan's guest order. That's true injustice right there.

Make sure you're ready for the season ahead ...
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