Baseball starts tomorrow.

While the season technically started last week with the Mariners and A’s facing off in Tokyo and the Cards and Marlins play tomorrow night, they don’t count in my mind. Let’s jump right to Thursday.

For the first game of the season, Cueto and the Reds will face off against Mark Buehrle and his new team, the Miami Marlins. If it’s possible, I’m going to overanalyze this one game as much as I can with a few questions.

How will Cueto fare? It’s always nice to get a nice first start from your best guy, but Cueto had a really good middle of the season last year so I’ll try not to be too concerned if he doesn’t throw a perfect game.

Who gets the first start in left field: Heisey or Ludwick? Gotta think it’s Heisey, but you never know with Dusty. He seems to like Ludwick and always seemed to not like Heisey.

How will Cozart and Mesoraco hit? Cozart had a great spring and Mesoraco didn’t hit well at the end of last season in the bigs. This, like my Cueto question, won’t mean much but it’s always good to have young guys getting confident early on.

What will Brandon Phillips say? I’m guessing he won’t speak to the media extensively before the game but someone’s got to ask about the Votto contract afterwards. I’m realizing he’s pretty two-faced; he says he just wants to play baseball but gets all hot and bothered on Twitter (link here) when the Reds don’t have some BP bobblehead giveaway this season.

What will Joey Votto say? Votto hasn’t said anything to the media about his deal since yesterday, but I’m guessing he will be just as humble as always on Thursday.

Now, all we can do is wait.