![\"MlbHlSq\"](\"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/wp-content\/MlbHlSq.jpg\" "\\"MlbHlSq\\"")
It’s the first round of interleague play in 2011.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\nIt’s the first round of interleague play in 2011.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n
I’m not completely a fan of this part of the schedule, that’s something to delve into more on Monday in Weekly Hit Ground Ball<\/em>, but it does throw together a few novel encounters and can add a bit of extra\u00c2\u00a0interest during what is a long regular season.<\/p>\n We had a series of exciting games last night and I’m sure we’ll have plenty more today. Six of them are starting before midnight UK time.<\/p>\n 18.07. Houston at Toronto (Brett Myers – Brandon Morrow)<\/strong><\/p>\n Astros v Blue Jays is not one of the interleague match-ups that grabs a neutral’s attention, if we’re being honest.\u00c2\u00a0 The series opener last night was a good game though.\u00c2\u00a0 Jo-Jo Reyes pitched seven strong innings for Toronto, only for the Blue Jays’ bullpen to cancel out his good work.\u00c2\u00a0 The Astros levelled the game at 2-2 with two runs in the eighth and then added on three more runs in the top of the ninth to take the win.<\/p>\n Brett Myers has been on a losing run of late, but pitched a decent game last time out.\u00c2\u00a0 Morrow has consistently been able to strike batters out in the Majors and he’s continued that trend this season with 37 K’s in 26 innings.\u00c2\u00a0 To make the next step to being a front-line starter, he needs to find a way to keep up those K’s whilst getting deeper into games.<\/p>\n 19.10. LA Dodgers at Chicago White Sox (Jon Garland – Mark Buehrle)<\/strong><\/p>\n Jon Garland faces the team he won a World Series with in 2005.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0The Dodgers\u00c2\u00a0were down to their last out in the opener before Russell Mitchell hit a game-tying home run.\u00c2\u00a0 L.A. went on to score three runs in the top of the tenth and the Sox could only get one of those runs back in the bottom of the frame.<\/p>\n Expect another closely-fought contest today.\u00c2\u00a0 <\/p>\n 19.10. St. Louis at Kansas City (Jake Westbrook – Nate Adcock)<\/strong><\/p>\n The Royals are a team on the rise; maybe not rocketing back into contention, but definitely going in the right direction after far too long in the doldrums.\u00c2\u00a0 Winning a series against the Cardinals would be another little boost to a fan base that has had little to cheer in recent times.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n Things have started well for K.C. with Jeff Francis showing a tantalizing glimpse of his pre-injury form while pitching\u00c2\u00a07.2 shut-out innings yesterday.\u00c2\u00a0 The Royals won 3-0 and today turn to one of their rookies.\u00c2\u00a0 Nate Adcock has pitched well out of the bullpen so far this season and an injury to Kyle Davies means that he’ll get a chance to make his first Major League start.<\/p>\n 21.05. Washington at Baltimore (Jon Lannan – Jeremy Guthrie) * ESPN America<\/strong><\/p>\n Do local bragging rights mean more when the teams involved have been perennial\u00c2\u00a0celler-dwellers of late?\u00c2\u00a0 Yes, they probably do. So while it may not look like much of an encounter to the rest of the Majors, this one means quite a lot to the respective players and fans.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n Guthrie is once again doing a good job most times out, despite receiving scant reward for his efforts (as his 1-6 record shows).\u00c2\u00a0 The O’s nominal ace was even pushed into emergency relief duty against the Yankees during the week.\u00c2\u00a0 He should return to his usual role today, which will be good news for the Orioles as the Nats absolutely hammered them 17-5 last night.<\/p>\n This game is scheduled to be shown on ESPN America, although Game Four of the NHL play-off between\u00c2\u00a0Boston and Tampa Bay is on live beforehand so the baseball game\u00c2\u00a0may be joined in-progress rather than for the first pitch (the listed programme start time is 21.30)<\/p>\n 21.05. Cincinnati at Cleveland (Homer Bailey – Josh Tomlin)<\/strong><\/p>\n With the Reds being reigning NL Central champs and the Indians surprisingly leading the AL Central, this is one of the most eagerly anticipated series between the teams in recent years.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n Game One lived up to those expectations.\u00c2\u00a0 The Indians recovered from 4-0 down to tie the game with four runs in the sixth inning.\u00c2\u00a0 They then took\u00c2\u00a0a decisive 5-4\u00c2\u00a0lead in dramatic fashion.\u00c2\u00a0 Ezequiel Carrera bunted home the run\u00c2\u00a0not simply in his\u00c2\u00a0first Major League at-bat, but on his first Major League pitch.<\/p>\n 21.10. Tampa Bay at Florida (David Price – Javier Vazquez)<\/strong><\/p>\n As with the Reds and Indians, this is another interleague series that catches the eye due to the form both teams are showing this season.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n Javier Vazquez has not mixed well with the American League while wearing a Yankees uniform.\u00c2\u00a0 Will a Marlins uniform make any difference?\u00c2\u00a0 We’ll find out today.\u00c2\u00a0Price didn’t pitch well against the Yankees last time out, but that won’t fool the\u00c2\u00a0Marlins.\u00c2\u00a0 They know they’re in for a tough afternoon against the left-hander.<\/p>\n All of these games are available to watch live via the MLB.TV subscription at <\/em>MLB.com<\/em><\/a>.\u00c2\u00a0 The ESPN America game\u00c2\u00a0is highlighted above.\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":" It’s the first round of interleague play in 2011 and we’ve got six games starting before midnight UK time on Saturday<\/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-10849","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\/10849","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=10849"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10849\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10879,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10849\/revisions\/10879"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10849"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10849"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10849"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}