Ten days or so ago, it looked like the last couple of weeks of the regular season would be relatively inconsequential.

The Detroit Tigers joined the Philadelphia Phillies last night in confirming their playoff spot and the other six teams currently sitting in the postseason places may well be holding them at the end of the season.

However, a few of them are certainly being made to work for it and important games relating to two of those spots will be played during the British evening on Saturday.

All times are in BST.

18.05. Houston at Chicago Cubs (Sosa – Lopez)
18.07. NY Yankees at Toronto (Colon – Alvarez)
18.10. Cleveland at Minnesota (Gomez – Swarzak)
21.05. Detroit at Oakland (Porcello – Gonzalez)
21.10. Tampa Bay at Boston (Niemann – Lester)
21.10. NY Mets at Atlanta (Dickey – Hudson)

The Boston Red Sox earned a crucial win yesterday to give themselves a four-game cushion ahead of the Tampa Bay Rays for the AL Wild Card. 

That result puts the pressure firmly back on the Rays today.  It’s not mathematically a ‘must win’ game, but it will feel like that because a win would give them the chance to take the four-game series 3-1 with another victory tomorrow. 

Two wins for the Rays and the gap is down to two.  Two wins for the Red Sox and the gap goes up to six.  Jeff Niemann and Jon Lester will be on the mound at Fenway today hoping to pitch their respective team into a good position.

In the NL East, the Atlanta Braves’ grip on the NL Wild Card has weakened of late.  It looked like the Phillies would take the division with the Braves comfortably taking the Wild Card; however, while the Phillies are on course for their half of that scenario (a win for them today against the Cardinals, or a loss by the Braves, would secure them the NL East crown for the fifth consecutive season), the Braves are going in the wrong direction.

Since a six-game winning streak between 18 and 23 August, the Braves have lost 13 of 21 games including a heavy 12-2 defeat at the hands of the New York Mets last night. 

The Mets would love to ruin the Braves’ season and knuckleballer R.A. Dickey will try to baffle their hitters today.  Tim Hudson is Atlanta’s ace and they need him to lead from the front with a big performance in this game.

All of these games are available to watch live via the MLB.TV subscription at MLB.com.  ESPN America is covering college football this evening rather than the baseball.   The full schedule for this weekend’s games can be found on MLB.com.