The final week of July always produces an avalanche of trade rumours to run alongside the games being played in MLB.
The buyers and sellers this year are fairly clear, with a few teams being a couple of wins or losses away from declaring their trade deadline direction, but the usual clamour for starting pitching help is not being matched by an attractive crop of free-agents-to-be ripe for being traded, so either we’ll see a few steady pick-ups or perhaps a blockbuster deal will come out of nowhere?
As we work through the rumours to see which ones come true, there are early games on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday to enjoy live during the British evening.
There’s a two-game interleague series between Washington and Cleveland this week and the early match-up on Wednesday is scheduled to be a highlight of the week with Stephen Strasburg and Carlos Carrasco mixing it up on the mound. Detroit’s exciting young starter Michael Fulmer is also set to start on Wednesday against Boston, whilst Madison Bumgarner will round out the early-game slate with a home start against the Reds.
Jacob DeGrom gave up five runs in 3.2 innings on Saturday against the Marlins after pitching a one-hitter against the Phillies in his previous start, so it will be interesting to see which version turns up at Citi Field to face the Rockies on Thursday.
On Friday, we’ve got an interleague series getting underway from Wrigley Field as the Cubs host the Seattle Mariners and the day-game opener is currently set to include Hiashi Iwakuma and Jon Lester.
All times are in BST.
Monday 25 July
No early games
Tuesday 26 July
No early games
Wednesday 27 July
17.10. Philadelphia at Miami (Eflin – Conley)
17.10. Washington at Cleveland (Strasburg – Carrasco) *BT Sport/ESPN
17.37. San Diego at Toronto (Perdomo – Estrada)
18.35. Detroit at Boston (Fulmer – Rodriguez)
20.10. Tampa Bay at LA Dodgers (Moore – McCarthy)
20.45. Cincinnati at San Francisco (Straily – Bumgarner) *BT Sport2
Thursday 28 July
18.10. Colorado at NY Mets (Anderson – DeGrom) *BT Sport/ESPN
19.10. Arizona at Milwaukee (Ray – Davies)
Friday 29 July
19.20. Seattle at Chicago Cubs (Iwakuma – Lester) *BT Sport/ESPN
