We have a relatively limited schedule of MLB games being played during the British evening this working week.

There are seven early contests in total, with two on Wednesday and the remaining five on ‘getaway’ Thursday.

All games are important at this stage in the season, but there are three series that stand out this week. The Cleveland Indians host a three-game series against the Detroit Tigers, the Milwaukee Brewers are in St. Louis to take on the Cardinals, while the Los Angeles Angels travel to New York to face the Yankees. 

No games from the first two series are scheduled to be played in daylight, but the third and final game of the Angels-Yankees series is an 18.05 BST start on Thursday.

All times are in BST.

Monday 8 August

No early games

Tuesday 9 August

No early games

Wednesday 10 August

20.10. Philadelphia at LA Dodgers (Worley – Billingsley) *ESPN America
20.45. Pittsburgh at San Francisco (Karstens – Sanchez) 

The Phillies took three games from four against the San Francisco Giants over the past weekend and enter this week with an 8.5 lead over the Braves in the National League East.  Wednesday’s game against the Dodgers will be the final game of a three-game series beginning on Monday.  Halladay, Lee and Hamels have taken all the plaudits (rightfully so), but Vance Worley has been a revelation at the back end of the Phillies’ rotation this season and he will hope to continue to show his worth against the Dodgers.

As for Pittsburgh,  the past two weeks may have dealt a fatal blow to their hopes of going into September in contention for the first time in years.  A ten-game losing streak heading into this week has turned a competitive 54-49 record into a faltering 54-59 record.  If they go into Wednesday’s game against the Giants looking to complete a three-game series sweep then they may still have a chance.  If their losing streak has extended to twelve by that point, you can probably consider their challenge finished.

Thursday 11 August

17.10. San Diego at NY Mets (Luebke – Niese) *ESPN America
17.10. Kansas City at Tampa Bay (Duffy – Niemann)
17.35. Colorado at Cincinnati (Chacin – Cueto)
17.37. Oakland at Toronto (Moscoso – Morrow)
18.05. LA Angels at NY Yankees (Chatwood – Colon)

[UPDATE: 19.20 Washington at Chicago Cubs – see Comments for further details]

The Angels and Yankees both found themselves in second place in their respective division coming into this week and their three-game series at Yankee Stadium.

The Yankees dropped two from three against the Red Sox over the past weekend – making their season series record 2-10 – while the Angels took two from three against the Mariners with Ervin Santana narrowly outdueling Felix Hernandez in the rubber match on Sunday.  Neither side had officially announced their probable pitcher for Thursday at time of writing, but it currently looks like Tyler Chatwood and Bartolo Colon will take the mound.

In the other games, ESPN America is scheduled to show the Padres-Mets game from Citi Field and that is shaping up to be a contest between two left-handers in Corey Luebke (seven strong innings against the Pirates in his most recent start) and Jonathon Niese (the Mets’ best pitcher this season). The Royals, Rays, A’s and Blue Jays look set to use the remainder of the season to continue to give young players a chance, while the Reds’ Johnny Cueto had a rough outing in his last start against the Cubs and will hope to rebound against the Rockies. 

Friday 12 August

No early games

All of these games are available to watch live via the MLB.TV subscription at MLB.com.  The early games being shown on ESPN America are highlighted above, while the ESPN/ESPN America schedule can be found on their website.  The full schedule for this week’s games can be found on MLB.com.