Welcome back for another baseball marathon. It's always fun in fantasy this time of year to open up box scores and try to make sense of the hot and slow starts coming from unexpected sources. Personally, I'm on the hook for Nick Markakis, Howie Kendrick and Mark Teahen this year, so the nightly numbers bring added intrigue as I track how these players are doing – basically, I hyped these guys ad naseum throughout the spring, so my rep suffers if their batting average, and such, suffers. So far, so good, though – both Markakis and Teahen are over .300, while Kendrick is at just .231, but he has a SB and a HR. Trust me, this won't the last update you get on these guys in this space. Moving on for now, here's a look at the first weekend that was:

WEEKEND UPDATE: Need-to-know info from the past few days
Alex Rodriguez's ultimate revenge against Yankees fans who have showered him with criticism (and boos) in recent years may be that he'll finally live up to his unrealistic expectations, including in clutch situations, become a beloved World Series hero and then void out his current contract and bolt the Big Apple.

Playoff observations

The plan tonight: Watch Sharks-Predators (the non-Versus broadcast), then catch Game 2 of Wild-Ducks. Nice to have games spread out tonight. Last night’s four simultaneous broadcasts reaffirmed one thing: Hockey is the worst channel-surfing sport out there. You really have to watch an entire game – if not an entire series – to follow all the subplots and understand which team is carrying play. That’s reason No. 119 why hockey doesn’t rate well in the United States, where what else is on is every bit as important as what you’re watching.

Surprised to learn that Jonathan Cheechoo took part in the morning skate. Even more surprised to see him in the San Jose lineup. It’s all about gamesmanship in the postseason, so you can bet the Sharks were taking a grave, quiet approach to Cheechoo’s injury hoping the league’s disciplinary arm would take action.

SCOUTING DEPARTMENT

Every spring, pitchers you'd never expect come out and surprise you. Last season, Bronson Arroyo, Francisco Liriano, Chris Young and Erik Bedard were just a few who raised the eyebrows of fantasy owners. Who are the draft-ignored hurlers that look like difference-makers this year?

A 1.54 ERA after his first two starts made Maine one of the more popular early season waiver claims in Yahoo! leagues.

Talkin' Sports: Fearful fantasy baseball forecast

With the New York Mets and St. Louis Cardinals set to open the Major League Baseball season on Sunday night, fans across America are readying themselves for another long season. No, not the traditional 162-game MLB season. I'm talking the day in, day out grind of the fantasy baseball schedule.

NBCSports.com Aligns With Bunchball to Add Social Game ...

REDWOOD CITY, Calif. and NEW YORK, April 9 /PRNewswire/ -- In a joint effort to build a connected community on NBCSports.com, social games provider Bunchball has created four community-driven games for the website. A user- generated trivia game and a matching game are available today for both the golf channel and hockey (NHL) channel of the site.

The two matching games, NBC Sports Golf Match-Up and NHL on NBC Match-3 Challenge, require players to swap adjacent items to create identical sets of 3 or more.