NL Central

Opening Day couldn't have gone much worse for the Milwaukee Brewers. First, they lost 10-0 at home to the Colorado Rockies. Then came news that Ryan Braun suffered an injury in the defeat. He was not in Tuesday's lineup either. 

Continue for updates.    

Opening Day came early to Wrigley Field on Sunday night, with the Chicago Cubs losing to the St. Louis Cardinals, 3-0, at the only stadium in professional baseball that could’ve really used an extra 24 hours of preparation.

Imagine arguably the best prospect in MLB, who has belted more home runs than any other player in spring training, starting the 2015 season in the minors.

Doesn't make sense, right?

Kris Bryant has been sensational for the Chicago Cubs. The 23-year-old finished spring training with a .425 batting average, nine home runs and 15 RBI.

While the weather certainly doesn't feel like it, the Cubs are set to open their season against the Cardinals on Sunday night in the first MLB game of the year. With the new season getting underway, a new era of Cubs baseball will be ushered in.

The Cincinnati Reds are getting no love.

In the most recent season outlook, Grantland writer Ben Lindbergh's NLC Preview uses a lot of data and makes mathematical projections, and not even the numbers are improving this team's outlook. In case you haven't got around to it, here's an excerpt on why we can expect the Reds to suck in 2015:

Kris Bryant, arguably the best prospect in baseball and inarguably the crusher of more home runs than any other player this spring training, will start the 2015 season in the minor league. But don't blame the Chicago Cubs—blame Major League Baseball.

After all, it's the rules that made this decision entirely inevitable and anything but surprising.

Even though the 2015 Chicago Cubs baseball season is just a week away, the hot topic of discussion lately has not been the state of the team; rather, it has been the fate of the historic Wrigley Field.

Chairman Tom Ricketts has already announced that the ballpark will not be ready for Opening Day, and renovations could take an extra year to complete.

So long as no one asks any current or former Cincinnati Reds about anything related to hitting philosophy, the time is ripe to realign our focus back to the game. It's almost time for real baseball, and there are a few observations we can make on what will soon be the 2015 roster.

Without dissecting everyone's performance in faux baseball, let's discuss some of the universal takeaways from camp. The following is a short list of five things we learned about the Reds in Goodyear:

Pedro Alvarez was a dynamic offensive force in the middle of the Pittsburgh Pirates lineup in 2013. Although he batted just .233 and led the National League with 186 strikeouts in 152 games, he blasted a career-high 36 home runs while driving in 100.  

The Chicago Cubs will be without Starlin Castro for at least a short period of time due to a groin issue. 

Continue for updates. 

ESPN: Castro Is Day-to-Day

Saturday, Mar. 21

According to Jesse Rogers of ESPN Chicago, Castro was scratched from the Cubs lineup Saturday against Seattle: