Cool, calm Lowe tosses gem in debut  —  Righty throws eight scoreless innings, gets early support  —  PHILADELPHIA — With a frenzied crowd prepared to bring the defending World Series champion Phillies into the 2009 season, Derek Lowe wasn't provided the best setting to make a good first impression …

Opener postponed until tomorrow  —  Due to a forecast of heavy rain in the Boston area, today's Red Sox-Rays season opener at Fenway Park has been postponed to tomorrow at 4:05 p.m.  —  “All of the festivities surrounding Opening Day will take place tomorrow,” Red Sox president Larry Lucchino confirmed …

A-ROD RETURN MAY NOT HAVE TO WAIT UNTIL MAY  —  BALTIMORE — Forget mid-May.  Alex Rodriguez is showing signs he is going to return to the Yankees well before that.  —  Hitting coach Kevin Long, who speaks daily with A-Rod, told The Post that Rodriguez has begun to hit and reported that he “feels 70 percent.”

Surprise?  Stewart gets opening-day start  —  Phoenix — Looking for maximum firepower - as well as another left-handed bat in the lineup against Diamondbacks ace sinkerballer Brandon Webb - Ian Stewart gets the start at second base in today's season-opener.  He replaces usual second baseman Clint Barmes.

What's cooking  —  Is faith in Murphy a sign of organizational enlightenment?  —  It's Opening Day and I'm revved up.  —  There's all the usual Christmas-in-April stuff, complete with a sleepless Sunday night spent wondering what the 2009 baseball season has in store for my Flushing Nine …

Peavy likely will be gone if Padres get off to bad start  —  The backdrop to a Padres season that begins today at Petco Park is that if the team falls out of playoff contention, Jake Peavy could be traded before or shortly after the All-Star break, perhaps to the Dodgers club that opposes Peavy this afternoon.

Incredible shrinking payroll: 14 of 30 MLB teams cut back  —  Fourteen of the 30 teams in Major League Baseball will have a lower opening-day payroll than a year ago, according to USA TODAY's annual salary survey.  —  Ten of the 14 teams are cutting their 25-man-roster budget by at least $10 million.

Astros eager to open at home, face Cubs' Zambrano  —  Club thinks this time it will be fair fight with Cubs' Zambrano  —  As Chicago Cubs ace Carlos Zambrano visits Minute Maid Park to start the 2009 season, it's impossible to forget he was part of the Astros' lowest point last year.

Prospectus Hit List  —  Opening Day Edition … Rk  —  Team  —  Overall W-L  —  Week W-L  —  Hit List Factor  —  Trend  —  Yankees  —  99-63  —  .606  —  A $441 million spending spree brought the Yankees the winter's biggest haul, but their self-loving $300 million slugger …

Yankees Rest Their Hope on the Singular Sabathia  —  With so much data in the annals of baseball, so many games and players and sets of skills, it is tempting to think everything can be quantified and each player can be compared with someone else.  —  It is rare to find an outlier, a player unlike any who has come before.

The Year of Jose Reyes  —  Jose Reyes, running off the field after a great play with a grin on his face that makes Tom Sawyer look like Mickey Rourke, seems to have no idea of the burden he carries around.  —  Major League Baseball has become, largely, a Latin game.

Acta announces starting lineup for Opening Day  —  About an hour after addressing his team, Nationals manager Manny Acta announced his starting lineup for Opening Day against the Marlins.  —  1. Lastings Milledge — CF  —  2. Cristian Guzman — SS  —  3. Ryan Zimmerman — 3B  —  4. Adam Dunn — LF

How Cutler-Orton trade went down … At about 2:30 p.m. Denver time Thursday, the Broncos gave the Chicago Bears the final terms of what they'd accept in trade for disgruntled quarterback Jay Cutler: first- and second-round picks this year, a first-round pick in 2010 and quarterback Kyle Orton.

Pitching plans  —  The Sox were clearly prepared for this rainout.  They had already said that if today's game were postponed, they would flip-flop Josh Beckett and Brad Penny this weekend with the sudden need for a fifth starter.  —  So Penny will start on Saturday, with Beckett taking the finale of the series in Anaheim, Calif.

Madden: Lou's heart is always in the Bronx  —  It was hard to tell what impressed Lou Piniella more in his nostalgic two-day stop at his old South Bronx stomping grounds - the new Yankee Stadium or the Yankees themselves.  —  Sitting behind his desk in the new Stadium's visiting clubhouse Saturday morning …