The UEFA Champions League Final between Bayern Munich and Chelsea is understandably the centrepiece of Saturday’s sporting evening.
However, there’s rarely a break in the daily stream of interesting news stories in MLB, so it will be worth keeping one eye (or ear) on the early games today to avoid missing out on anything.
On Friday, Comerica Park was the scene of most of the drama. Justin Verlander came within two outs of recording his third career no-hitter before Pittsburgh’s Josh Harrison looped the ball past the shortstop Jhonny Peralta for a broken-bat single in the ninth inning.
Verlander is one of the elite pitchers who has the stuff to pitch a no-hitter on any given night.
Watching the highlights, it makes you wonder how any of the Pirates hitters managed to make any contact at all. As Pirates manager Clint Hurdle somewhat cryptically put it: “That’s a master craftsman with a power tool. He can take you places you don’t want to go”.
Harrison’s single showed why no-hitters are such special events as even when a pitcher is at the top of his game, one softly-hit ball dropping into no-man’s land can turn a historic night into ‘just’ an outstanding performance.
Prior to the magic of Verlander’s gem, there was an emotional send-off for another pitcher on Friday. Kerry Wood announced his retirement yesterday after coming out of the Wrigley Field bullpen for the final time against cross-town rivals the White Sox. He struck out Dayan Viciedo and then walked off the mound to a standing ovation.
There’s no way of knowing what great moments MLB will produce today, just as there’s no way of predicting how the Champions League Final will turn out. That’s exactly what makes sport such compelling viewing. It should be a great evening.
All times are in BST.
18.05. Cincinnati at NY Yankees (Bailey - Nova) *ESPN America
18.07. NY Mets at Toronto (Batista - Morrow)
21.05. Miami at Cleveland (Sanchez - Gomez)
21.05. Pittsburgh at Detroit (Burnett - Smyly)
21.05. Oakland at San Francisco (Ross - Vogelsong)
21.10. Minnesota at Milwaukee (Pavano - Gallardo) *ESPN America
21.10. Seattle at Colorado (Vargas - Friedrich)
21.10. Atlanta at Tampa Bay (Delgado - Cobb)
All of these games are available to watch live via the MLB.TV subscription at MLB.com. ESPN America has a triple-bill of baseball with the two above-referenced games being followed by the Orioles-Nationals game from midnight. The full schedule for today’s games can be found on MLB.com.