Sunday’s early MLB games: Following a no-no

I had to check my calendar just now to remind myself of how long the 2010 MLB regular season has been running.  We’ve had so much action that it’s hard to believe we are only two weeks into the season.  Ubaldo Jimenez’s no-hitter last night added an exclamation point to what has been an incredible opening to the season.

As always on a Sunday, we’ve got an almost full slate of ‘early’ games today to enjoy live in the British evening.  The one exception is the ESPN Sunday Night contest between the Mets and Cardinals and after their twenty-inning, near seven-hour game last night/this morning, all involved will be extremely grateful that they have got an extra seven hours or so (compared to a 1.05 ET start) before their game begins. 

Picking out a few highlights from the early games, the Garza-Lester confrontation should be a good one between two strong starters, while Orioles-A’s brings together two exciting youngsters in Brian Matusz and Brett Anderson, the latter having just signed a four-year contract extension with Oakland (much to my delight).  The Giants-Dodgers game that I built up yesterday turned out to be a one-sided affair, but L.A. will look to gain some revenge today with Clayton Kershaw on the mound.  Through it all, spare a thought for the Rockies’ Greg Smith. He’s got a tough act to follow.

All times listed below are in BST.

18.05. Chicago White Sox at Cleveland (Gavin Floyd – Fausto Carmona)
18.05. Texas at NY Yankees (Rich Harden – Andy Pettitte)
18.07. LA Angels at Toronto (Ervin Santana – Ricky Romero)
18.35. Cincinnati at Pittsburgh (Bronson Arroyo – Paul Maholm)
18.35. Colorado at Atlanta (Greg Smith – Jair Jurrjens)
18.35. Florida at Philadelphia (Nate Robertson – Cole Hamels)
18.35. Milwaukee at Washington (Doug Davis – Jason Marquis)
18.35. Tampa Bay at Boston (Matt Garza – Jon Lester)
19.10. Kansas City at Minnesota (Luke Hochevar – Carl Pavano)
19.20. Houston at Chicago Cubs (Wandy Rodriguez – Ryan Dempster)
21.05. Arizona at San Diego (Ian Kennedy – Wade LeBlanc)
21.05. Baltimore at Oakland (Brian Matusz – Brett Anderson)
21.10. Detroit at Seattle 4:10 PM   (Max Scherzer – Ian Snell)
21.10. San Francisco at LA Dodgers (Barry Zito – Clayton Kershaw)

All the above games can be followed via various resources on MLB.com (Gameday, At Bat with Gameday Audio and MLB.tv). ESPN America is focusing on the NHL playoffs, so the Mets-Cardinals game is being shown ‘as live’ from 4.00 a.m. rather than the usual live coverage from 1.00 a.m.. A complete schedule of MLB games can be found on MLB.com.