A March opener

The Dodgers will begin the season on March 31 against the Giants, the first step in the year-long celebration of both clubs’ moves West in 1958. That three-game series will be at Dodger Stadium. Strangely, the Dodgers won’t make their first trip to San Francisco until July, but the two clubs will close out the regular season Sept. 26-28 at AT&T Park. The Dodgers have released a tentative version of their schedule, which is available on their web site. Other highlighs includes, as previously reported, interleague road series with the Angels and Tigers and interleague home series with the Angels, Indians and White Sox. There are TWO trips to Cincinnati, including a two-gamer in late April. But it gets especially grueling late. The Dodgers have a San Diego-Colorado-Pittsburgh trip Sept. 8-18, with the Pittsburgh portion a four-game series. … Those coming out for Fan Appreciation Day on Sunday will get to see Eric Stults start against Barry Zito, although Stults probably will only go four or five innings and then be followed by a host of relievers. As Grady said, there will be a lot of judging going on these next three games, which makes them very similar to spring-training games.