Saturday’s early MLB games include the resurgent Rays, the still-reeling Red Sox and the surprising joint-leaders of the AL Central.<\/p>\n
All times are in BST.<\/p>\n
18.05. Baltimore at Cleveland (Guthrie – Tomlin)<\/strong><\/p>\n The Indians are joint leaders of the AL Central (alongside the Kansas City Royals) as we enter today\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s games.\u00c2\u00a0 They\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve had a terrific start to the season, while the Orioles’ promising opening has given way to a five-game losing streak of late, including last night\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s 8-2 loss.\u00c2\u00a0 Both starting pitchers are coming off decent outings.<\/p>\n 18.05. Texas at NY Yankees (Holland – Garcia)<\/strong><\/p>\n Yesterday\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s 5-3 win for the Rangers was most notable for the Yankees hitting into\/Rangers turning six double-plays.\u00c2\u00a0 They\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re known as the pitcher\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s best friend and Matt Harrison is obviously a likeable fellow after so many turned up to support him last night.\u00c2\u00a0 Derek Holland will hope a few have stayed around for his start today.\u00c2\u00a0 Freddy Garcia won the Yankees\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 fifth starting spot in Spring Training and will make his first start of the season today after one relief appearance.<\/p>\n 18.05. Milwaukee at Washington (Gallardo – Marquis)<\/strong><\/p>\n Jayson Werth produced some extra-inning heroics in last night\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s game to give the Nats a win after they had earlier let a 3-0 lead slip. Yovani Gallardo pitched brilliantly in his first start of the season, earning him my inaugural Performance of the Week award.\u00c2\u00a0 He then had a mediocre outing against the Cubs.\u00c2\u00a0 Whether they were related is open for debate.\u00c2\u00a0 He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll look to bounce back today, while Jason Marquis hopes to carry on some good form from his start last Sunday against the Mets.\u00c2\u00a0 <\/p>\n 18.10. Toronto at Boston (Reyes – Beckett)<\/strong><\/p>\n Last weekend\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s series against the Yankees wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t the catalyst that those in Beantown hoped it would be.\u00c2\u00a0 For all the warranted caveats (still very early in the season, plenty of talent to turn things around and go on a winning streak etc) there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s no way you can look at a 2-10 start in a positive way.\u00c2\u00a0 The Red Sox received a dominant display from Josh Beckett against the Yankees and they need another today.<\/p>\n 18.10. Seattle at Kansas City (Hernandez – O’Sullivan)<\/strong><\/p>\n If you don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have a strong rooting interest in any of the other teams playing at this time, why not take a look at the Royals?\u00c2\u00a0 Yes, their promising start is likely to give way to another losing season, but they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve got some good youngsters (with plenty more to come through) and it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s good to see the fans in Kansas City getting to enjoy some games rather than endure them.\u00c2\u00a0 As for the M\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s, King Felix had a shocker in his recent start but his team bailed him out.\u00c2\u00a0 Few would deny that his teammates owed Hernandez a performance like that (in fact, a whole host of them) after the way he has pitched for them in the last couple of years without a lot of support.<\/p>\n 18.10. Pittsburgh at Cincinnati (McDonald – Leake)<\/strong><\/p>\n Charlie Morton moved down the Reds last night, pitching a complete game with his only mistake being a solo shot by Jay Bruce in the ninth inning.\u00c2\u00a0 Only the White Sox have scored more runs than the Reds so far this season, so James McDonald may fear a backlash today.<\/p>\n 21.00. NY Mets at Atlanta (Carrasco – Lowe) * ESPN America<\/strong><\/p>\n The Mets and Braves were rained out last night, so Turner Field is hosting a double-header today.\u00c2\u00a0 D.J. Carrasco was set to start last night as the Mets shuffled the pitching pack after a double-header on Thursday and it looks like he will keep his starting spot in the opener today.\u00c2\u00a0 Derek Lowe has taken a loss in his last two starts but has pitched well all three times out so far this season. Mike Pelfrey and Jair Jurrjens will start the second game.<\/p>\n 21.10. Minnesota at Tampa Bay (Baker – Niemann)<\/strong><\/p>\n Here come the Rays!\u00c2\u00a0 They\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve won four in a row, including the first two games of this series, to lift their season record to 5-8.\u00c2\u00a0 Johnny Damon has led the Rays\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 turnaround in recent days, launching a walk-off homer on Thursday and driving in two more runs last night.<\/p>\n 21.10. LA Angels at Chicago White Sox (Chatwood – Floyd)<\/strong><\/p>\n The Angels have won three straight and received a fourth strong outing in a row from Jered Weaver.\u00c2\u00a0 They will attempt to extend the streak to four wins with rookie Tyler Chatwood on the mound, while the White Sox counter with Gavin Floyd.\u00c2\u00a0 He pitched eight innings against the Rays last time out.<\/p>\n All of these games are available to watch live via the <\/em>MLB.TV subscription<\/em> at <\/em>MLB.com<\/em><\/a>.\u00c2\u00a0 ESPN America is showing the\u00c2\u00a0Mets-Braves game from 21.00.\u00c2\u00a0 The full schedule for today\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s games can be found on <\/em>MLB.com<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Saturday’s early MLB games include the resurgent Rays, the still-reeling Red Sox and the surprising joint-leaders of the AL Central<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[82,25,70,553,66],"class_list":["post-10621","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-baseball-coverage","category-mlb-2","tag-bst-guide","tag-espn-america","tag-gamedayaudio","tag-mlb-2","tag-mlb-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10621","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10621"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10621\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10625,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10621\/revisions\/10625"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10621"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10621"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10621"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}