F.A. Cup final day doesn’t seem as special now as it once did, but it is still a notable event on the British sporting calendar and I’m sure many will be tuning in this afternoon.<\/p>\n
Whether the Wembley final is a thriller or a let down, MLB provides us with a host of exciting games to follow it during the British evening.\u00c2\u00a0 All times are in BST.<\/p>\n
Twins manager Ron Gardenhire\u00c2\u00a0made a big call in last night’s game, walking Mark Teixeira to load the bases ahead of Alex Rodriguez while leading by one run\u00c2\u00a0in the seventh inning. He was hoping to get\u00c2\u00a0an inning-ending\u00c2\u00a0double-play and had A-Rod’s grounder down the third-base line off the first pitch\u00c2\u00a0stayed fair, he would have looked like a genius.\u00c2\u00a0 It went foul, A-Rod then hit a grand slam and poor old Gardy\u00c2\u00a0was left looking a tad foolish.\u00c2\u00a0 Such is the life of a Big League manager. The Twins will hope to avenge that 8-4 loss today with Liriano taking on Pettitte.<\/p>\n
In the sole early game yesterday, the Buccos belted their way past the Cubs thanks to five-hit days by both Andrew McCutchen and Garrett Jones.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0The locals were not impressed, particularly when the White Sox-supporting Jones took Carlos Zambrano deep for a three-run jack to break a 3-3 tie in the eighth.\u00c2\u00a0 The beauty of baseball is that you can turn up the next day and put the last game behind you.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s what the Cubs aim to do with Dempster on the mound.<\/p>\n
So much for all of the pre-season comments about the Blue Jays being\u00c2\u00a0plunged into a year of misery following\u00c2\u00a0Roy Halladay’s departure for Philadelphia.\u00c2\u00a0 No one expects them to keep pace with the Yankees, Rays and Red Sox for the entire season, but they are giving their fans\u00c2\u00a0plenty to cheer about.\u00c2\u00a0 Despite quickly falling 9-3 down, they fought back against the Rangers yesterday for an 18-10 win, launching five home runs in the process to increase their Major League lead in the long-ball list (57, with the Red Sox next at 48).\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Nationals and Rockies were rained out last night, so they’ll be a double-header today.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s great news for us because we’re presented with an enticing pitching match-up between the\u00c2\u00a0crafty veteran Hernandez and one of the best young pitchers around in Jimenez.<\/p>\n
The Phillies got the better of Randy\u00c2\u00a0Wolf\u00c2\u00a0and the Brewers last night in a 9-5 win that saw Jamie Moyer improve his record to 5-2.\u00c2\u00a0 Joe Blanton makes his third start of the season in today’s game against reliever turned (temporary?) starter Chris Narveson, who has earned a win in each of his last two appearances.<\/p>\n
No great build-up is needed here: ‘Oswalt versus Lincecum’ says it all. It should be a fascinating pitching duel, largely due to the quality of the hurlers on the mound but also because neither team has much of an offence.\u00c2\u00a0 The Astros are dead-last in the Majors with a team .275 on-base percentage, while the Giants are twentieth in that category (.337).<\/p>\n
The Mariners scuffled their way to a 4-3 win over the Rays last night, but games like that can help to get a team going in the right direction. The M’s certainly need to change something as their 14-21 record is far below the lofty expectations placed on them this year.\u00c2\u00a0 James Shields took a loss in his last outing, but he will not feel too bad about that as his opposite number pitched a perfect game.\u00c2\u00a0 Expect ‘Big Game’ James to bounce back today.<\/p>\n
All the above games can be followed via various resources on MLB.com (Gameday, At Bat with Gameday Audio and MLB.tv), while ESPN America is broadcasting the\u00c2\u00a0Twins-Yankees and Phillies-Brewers.<\/em> A complete schedule of MLB games can be found on MLB.com<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Whether the F.A. Cup final is a thriller or a let down, MLB provides us with a host of exciting games to follow it during the British evening<\/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-7887","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\/7887","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=7887"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7887\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7893,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7887\/revisions\/7893"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7887"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7887"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7887"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}