Interleague play in MLB is not liked by all. Traditionalists hark back to the days when the only time American and National League teams met was in the World Series. Watching interleague games has now become a routine part of the season and the All-Star Game has been a victim of this as seeing a star batter from the AL facing an NL ace pitcher is no longer such a memorable moment.
Add in the potential disputes caused by American League pitchers getting injured while running the bases (the ‘Chien-Ming Wang’ factor) and the impact the games can have on the strength of schedules played by competing Wild Card teams and there are a lot of reasons to say that the negatives of interleague play outweigh the positives.
However, we can put those thoughts to one side right now and just get on with enjoying the games. There are six early contests today. All times are in BST.
19.05. Florida at Chicago White Sox (Chris Volstad – Gavin Floyd)
Mark Buehrle dominated the Marlins last night, pitching eight shutout innings as the White Sox won 8-0. Gavin Floyd has had a difficult start to the season, so the question is whether Floyd can be inspired by his teammate or if the Marlins are able to bounce back against a pitcher not quite on his game?
19.15. LA Angels at St. Louis (Scott Kazmir – Kyle Lohse)
Pitcher Brad Penny hit a grand slam yesterday as the Cardinals took the series opener 9-5. The Angels’ Joel Pineiro struggled badly against his former team, being knocked out after three innings with nine earned runs already against his name. Reliever Trevor Bell picked up most of the slack (3 scoreless innings pitched) and that effort could be important today as going deep into games has rarely been Scott Kazmir’s strong point.
21.05. San Francisco at Oakland (Matt Cain – Gio Gonzalez)
The A’s won the opening game of the latest Bay Bridge series, getting the better of former Oakland ace Barry Zito in a 6-1 victory. Both Cain and Gonzalez are in good form so this should be an exciting encounter.
21.05. Baltimore at Washington (Brad Bergesen – Craig Stammen)
The Orioles-Nationals rivalry hasn’t set many pulses racing during its short history, but maybe that will change over the next few years as both teams bring through some talented young players? A Chris Tillman-Stephen Strasburg match-up would get plenty of attention in the future; Bergesen-Stammen doesn’t have quite the same appeal. Baltimore won yesterday’s game 5-3.
21.10. Colorado at Kansas City (Jeff Francis – Kyle Davies)
Jeff Francis didn’t get a win in his return from Tommy John surgery last Sunday, but apart from that the day couldn’t have gone much better. He pitched seven strong innings against Washington and will look to build on that today against the Royals. Jose Guillen went deep twice last night as the Royals won 9-2.
21.10. Milwaukee at Minnesota (Yovani Gallardo – Kevin Slowey)
The Brewers are in a mess. A 4-3 win against the Pirates on Thursday snapped a nine-game losing streak, but they immediately turned back to their win-less ways by getting absolutely pounded by the Twins last night 15-3. Milwaukee were undone last year by poor pitching and yesterday’s game showed things haven’t got any better. Starter Dave Bush gave up seven runs and retired only one batter and his replacement, Jeff Suppan, gave up a further five runs in 3.2 innings. The only starter to buck the Brew Crew calamity trend in 2009 was Yovani Gallardo so all hopes rest on him again today.
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 not broadcasting any early games, although they are showing Tigers-Dodgers live from midnight. A complete schedule of MLB games can be found on MLB.com
