Giants and Braves fans will tell you otherwise, but it’s a real shame we didn’t have the 163 and 164 ‘play-in’ games that looked on the cards heading into the final day of the MLB regular season. For all the news about managerial and Front Office changes, the last two days have seemed eerily quiet without any games being played after such a frenetic climax to the season.
But actual baseball is now back with us and what the schedule lacks in terms of the sheer number of games is more than made up for by the increase in tension, drama and excitement that only the playoffs can bring.
Postseason games are typically played in the evening to fill the ballparks and to capture a decent TV audience, but thankfully for us the schedulers have decided to play the first two games of the Rangers-Rays series in the day time (some would say that’s because Tropicana Field wouldn’t be full whenever they played the games, but I’ll leave such thoughts to the Rays’ own playing roster).
That means we can catch some live playoff action during the British evening over the rest of the working week.Â
All times are in BST.
Wednesday 6 October
18.37. Texas at Tampa Bay (Cliff Lee – David Price)
22.07. Cincinnati at Philadelphia (Edinson Volquez – Roy Halladay)
01.37 a.m. NY Yankees at Minnesota (CC Sabathia – Francisco Liriano)
Thursday 7 October
19.37. Texas at Tampa Bay (C.J. Wilson – Matt Garza)
23.07. NY Yankees at Minnesota (Andy Pettitte – Carl Pavano)
02.37. a.m. Atlanta at San Francisco (Derek Lowe – Tim Lincecum)
Friday 8 October
23.07. Cincinnati at Philadelphia (Bronson Arroyo – Roy Oswalt)
02.37. a.m. Atlanta at San Francisco (Tommy Hanson – Matt Cain)
———————————————
A Cliff Lee-David Price encounter looks a thrilling way to start, while Roy Halladay’s postseason debut against the Reds will begin at approximately ten past ten this evening UK time. I doubt Dusty Baker’s men will be expecting Doc to be shot with nerves.
Carl Pavano will be equally determined to put in a strong showing against his former team for the Twins on Thursday, with that game starting at approximately ten past eleven. Yankees manager Joe Girardi has gone for experience (Pettitte) over youth (Phil Hughes), although both have been less than convincing of late. Game Two of the Reds-Phillies series will start at ten past eleven on Friday night, with Roy Oswalt and Bronson Arroyo set to make their first postseason appearances since 2005.
Following the games
ESPN America will be broadcasting all of the above games live. As ‘International’ fans, all games are also available for us to watch live on MLB.com via the MLB.TV subscription. Note that the postseason games should be included in the standard 2010 season subscription, so there’s need to buy the separate Postseason subscription if you’re already a subscriber.Â
If not, you can sign up for all the games for $20 (approximately £12.60) and there’s also a package available to buy the postseason package alongside the NFL Game Pass subscription (basically the NFL.com equivalent of MLB.TV). Details can be found here.
Picking a team
If your team isn’t one of the eight to have made it through to the postseason, then check out Josh Chetwynd’s recent column at ESPN America.com in which he offers some tips on who you might want to adopt as the your 2010 playoff team.
