The calendar has flipped to September, the month where MLBÂ teams battle to determine their fate: the start of a long winter or the beginning of a playoff run.
That’s the theory anyway. The regular season now actually extends a few days into October and, in the new postseason format starting this year, that resultant playoff run may consist of a single game.
But let’s put those little details to one side and stick with the original premise. September is the month where all of the hard work put in so far either comes to fruition or turns to heartbreak.
And that makes games in September all the more exciting. These are the games you can follow live during the British evening, with all times in BST.
18.05. Baltimore at NY Yankees (Chen – Phelps)
18.05. San Francisco at Chicago Cubs (Lincecum – Germano)
18.07. Tampa Bay at Toronto (Niemann – Alvarez) *MLB.com Free Game of the Day
21.05. LA Angels at Seattle (Santana – Hernandez)
21.05. Philadelphia at Atlanta (Lee – Hudson)
21.05. St. Louis at Washington (Lohse – Zimmermann)
21.10. Minnesota at Kansas City (De Vries – Smith)
There are plenty of good-looking series this weekend, but for many a neutral the one that stands out the most is from the top of the AL East where the Orioles continue to defy their detractors. Miguel Gonzalez is an unlikely hero but he played the role well yesterday, shutting out the Yankees over seven innings as Baltimore took the series opener 6-1. Wei-Yin Chen has proved to be a solid free agent pick-up for Baltimore this season and the Taiwanese pitcher makes arguably his most important start so far in his MLB career today.
In the other two games starting just after 6 o’clock U.K. time, the two playoff place contenders – the Giants and Rays – both took a defeat yesterday and will look to bounce back today.
As for the 9 o’clock starts, the Cardinals’ bats need to come back to life quickly and today would be a good day for a re-birth after the Nationals took the series opener 10-0 yesterday thanks to a complete game shut-out by Gio Gonzalez.
The Phillies are entering their first September for a while in which they haven’t been active players in the playoff race; however they can still make an impact by being a spoiler and that’s what they did yesterday to the Braves with a come-from-behind extra inning victory.
In the American League, the King’s Court will be in session at Safeco Field as Felix Hernandez faces the L.A. Angels, while a rain-out yesterday means the Twins and Royals will play a double-header today.
All of these games are available to watch live via the MLB.TV subscription at MLB.com. There are no MLB games on ESPN America today as the channel focuses on college football instead. The full schedule for today’s games can be found on MLB.com.
