Save the date: April 6th

30 days from today is opening day! The Cardinals and Cubs face off in Chicago at 8 ET on ESPN. The rest of the majors begins the next day, including the Padres who face off against the Dodgers in L.A. at 1:10 p.m. local time. It will be Kemp's return and the Padres' first glimpse of real-game action against the world's best pitcher in the form of Clayton Kershaw. Good luck. The game will not be televised nationally but will be shown in San Diego locally (and I assume on the Dodgers' broadcasting network as well) on FSSD. It is unknown who will pitch for the Padres, but my guess is that it will either be James Shields or Tyson Ross. I'll probably go with the former. Meanwhile, games have started up this spring across Arizona and Florida. The Padres fell 4-3 on the first day and then again 9-4 in the second game. However, they came back and beat the White Sox 5-0 today, thus making their overall decision margin at only minus-1. Some highlights are provided here below:
Game 1:
http://m.mlb.com/sd/video/v40505283/a-recap-of-the-padres-first-spring-training-game/?tcid=mm_sd_vid&c_id=sd

Game 2:http://m.mlb.com/sd/video/v40840383/sdsea-venable-hits-tworun-shot-to-cut-it-to-43/?tcid=mm_sd_vid&c_id=sd

Game 3: There are no highlights for this game, but in-depth coverage will be shown on padres.com 
and a post-game response here: http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2015/mar/06/padres-beat-white-sox-cactus-league/

As always, you can get entertaining articles online at http://www.utsandiego.com/news/sports/padres-mlb/
It should be exciting to see the match-up tomorrow as James Shields takes the mound against Madison Bumgarner and the San Francisco Giants, a rematch of game 5 of the world series last season.

In the NBA, the playoff teams are really starting to show themselves as perennials.  The battle for the eighth spot in the west is still up for grabs, as it will be a toss-up to see who will get it between Oklahoma City and New Orleans. Both teams are looking really good as their star players overcome injury and come back to the court. Russel Westbrook had facial surgery about a week ago and missed one game because of it, but then came back and rattled off four straight triple-doubles -- a feat not seen since the days of Michael Jordan when he recorded seven straight in the late 80's. The Warriors are still the top seed and deservedly so since they have had very few team injuries. In the east, the Hawks look to be the team to beat as they took down LeBron and company tonight in Atlanta. The east seems to be wild, especially with Chicago limping around, still holding a home-court advantage playoff spot. We'll see how this all turns out, but it looks pretty exciting with less than 40 days left until the end of the regular season. (Steph Curry is pictured here.)

Last Saturday night, BYU basketball pulled off the improbable and the unbelievable. They went into Spokane and beat #3 Gonzaga, ending their 41-game home winning streak. This also propelled BYU into tournament contention, according to ESPN's Joe Lunardi. If they can get to the championship game in the WCC tournament, BYU has a big shot at making it. We'll just have to wait and see if that is the case as we witness the fact that selection Sunday is nine days away. Duke and UNC play tomorrow at 9 E.T. on ESPN as the regular season comes to a close for most programs across the country. March madness is underway.

That should do it for this week! Look forward to more spring highlights and updates next week!