Phillies Look to Gain Ground, Zito Visits Planet Coors

We’ve got a light schedule on Monday, with some surprisingly good pitching matchups:

American League

• Royals at Tigers, 4:05 p.m. PT – Zack Greinke and Justin Verlander do battle in Detroit. Two starts does not a season make, but it’s nice to see Greinke off to a strong start in 2007.

National League

• Mets at Phillies, 4:05 p.m. PT – Shortstop Jimmy Rollins thinks the Phillies are the team to beat in the NL East, but their 3-8 start isn’t helping his case. Don’t blame Rollins, though. He’s hitting .298/.411/.766 in the early going, with a league-leading six homers. The problem has been that Philadelphia’s team ERA of 5.14 is worst in the NL — yep, behind even the Washington Nationals. John Maine starts for the Mets in this one, against Freddy Garcia, who makes his Phillies debut after opening the season on the disabled list.
• Pirates at Cardinals, 5:10 p.m. PT – Ian Snell and Anthony Reyes hook up in St. Louis. The 25-year-old Snell fanned 11 in his ‘07 debut against the Astros and followed with seven strong innings against the Cardinals. Reyes, born exactly two weeks before Snell, is a little behind his counterpart in the development department but has been a highly touted prospect in the past. This could be a fun matchup.
• Giants at Rockies, 5:35 p.m. PT – Barry Zito and Jeff Francis square off at Coors Field. Francis owns a career 4.41 ERA pitching in the Mile High City. Here’s a weird split that might speak a little to the differences between playing at Coors and “real baseball”: Francis has issued 21 intentional walks in his brief career; 19 of those have come on the road. I wonder if other Rockies pitchers have similar splits.

Happy Monday, folks. Baseball. It’s not just for breakfast anymore…