I always look forward to the Sunday slate of baseball games, but my enthusiasm is especially high today thanks to the brilliant recent form shown by the Oakland A’s.
My expectations were suitably modest coming into the season; however it’s hard not to dream when your team has won 13 of their last 15 games, including the first three games of a four-game series against the New York Yankees (who have dominated the A’s at the Coliseum in recent times).
Oakland are one of nine teams trying to complete a series sweep today. All times are in BST.
18.05. Chicago White Sox at Detroit (Humber vs Turner) *ESPN America
18.10. Milwaukee at Cincinnati (Fiers – Cueto)
18.10. LA Dodgers at NY Mets (Eovaldi – Niese)
18.35. Toronto at Boston (Alvarez – Lester)
18.35. Atlanta at Washington (Jurrjens – Detwiler)
18.35. San Francisco at Philadelphia (Zito – Blanton)
18.35. Miami at Pittsburgh (Sanchez – Karstens)
18.40. Seattle at Tampa Bay (Beavan – Moore)
19.10. Minnesota at Kansas City (Deduno – Guthrie)
19.15. Chicago Cubs at St. Louis (Wood – Lynn) *BBC 5 Live Sports Extra
20.05. Baltimore at Cleveland (Britton – Tomlin)
21.05. NY Yankees at Oakland (Sabathia – Colon) *ESPN America
21.05. Colorado at San Diego (Friedrich – Ohlendorf)
21.10. Houston at Arizona (Lyles – Collmenter)
01.00. Texas at LA Angels (Harrison – Haren) *ESPN America
Of the other broom-bearers, arguably the most determined will be the Detroit Tigers. They’ve used the first two games of their current series to climb over the Chicago White Sox into first place in the AL Central. Taking the third and final game against the Sox would be seen by Detroit as a real statement of intent, while Chicago has an opportunity to not only salvage a win from the series but to jump straight back to the top of the division in the process.
Elsewhere, the top NL Central and West teams are all pushing each other to keep their winning runs going. The Giants, Dodgers and D-Backs in the West, and the Pirates, Reds and Cardinals in the Central, will all be trying to complete series sweeps today.
Yesterday St. Louis produced one of the more unlikely results we’ll see in the 2012 season as they beat the Cubs 12-0 with all of the runs being scored in a single inning (the bottom of the seventh). Â I don’t know what the Cardinals did during the seventh-inning stretch, but they would be well advised to replicate it exactly today. Coverage of that game can be found on BBC 5 Live Sports Extra from 19.15 after the day’s play at The Oval.
Meanwhile the Rangers and Angels are tied 1-1 heading into the rubber match of their latest series in the ESPN Sunday Night Game that will complete an MLB triple-header on ESPN America.
All of these games are available to watch live via the MLB.TV subscription at MLB.com. BBC 5 Live Sports Extra can be found on digital radio, digital TV and on the BBC.co.uk website (coverage on the website is only available to UK residents).Â