Fronteras

The Arizona Diamondbacks open their season tonight at Chase Field against the St. Louis Cardinals. It will be a much different team that takes the field for Arizona, with two of the three starting outfielders, Chris Young and Justin Upton, having been traded. And there will be a lot of other changes this year to “Opening Day” according to Barry Bloom of MLB.com.

BARRY BLOOM: Well I think the main thing is this is the first year you have interleague play every day. The Angels are opening in Cincinnati. There’s a plethora of interleague openers where at one time the interleague playing period was in May and June, and now that this is a 15-15 split, and the Astros moving over to the American League, you have to have at least one interleague game every day. So you have a lot of non-traditional openers this year.

LAMBERT: In a lot of cases in other Major League cities, traditionally “Opening Day” has been like a holiday, and it doesn’t seem like it’s ever really reached that status here in the Phoenix area. Is there a reason for that that you can point to?

BLOOM: Well I think it’s a big thing among baseball plans but you know, take into account that Spring Training has just closed. You have 15 teams playing here now and 11 different sites, and even this year the “World Baseball Classic” at Salt River Fields and Chase Field in the early part of March. So there’s a lot of baseball here for six weeks before you even get to Opening Day. So, there really isn’t a traditional Opening Day here because of the fact that spring baseball really saturates the area.