The Opening Day lineup is here!

Well, hello there, stranger:

Can’t lie — there’s a lot more excitement seeing a fresh new lineup with Andrew McCutchen and Evan Longoria in it than at any point after Opening Day last season. I’ll take this .2% increase in enthusiasm for a very likely doomed season because it’s .2% more than any of us could’ve imagined after the past week. There’s unseen baseball mere hours away!

In terms of the structure of this lineup, I would’ve preferred

2B Panik
RF McCutchen
C Posey
3B Longoria
1B Belt
LF Pence
CF Jackson
SS Crawford
P Bumgarner

But fate and Bruce Bochy weren’t having it.

A couple of historical notes from an indispensable Twitter account (besides @Every6thDay, @McCoveyChron, and @GrantBrisbee)

The Dodgers will be countering with some players who are signed to Major League contracts and are currently on their roster. That group features a lot of good hitters, but more importantly, a pitcher who’s one of the best to ever do it.

It’s an exclusive national telecast, meaning you can only watch it on ESPN, the network that fired Jayson Stark for no reason.