There are four early MLB games starting before midnight today.\u00c2\u00a0 All times are in BST.<\/p>\n
18.05. Seattle at NY Yankees (Jason Vargas – Javier Vazquez)<\/strong><\/p>\n Yesterday wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t a great day for the Yankees themselves.\u00c2\u00a0 Alex Rodriguez, out for the three previous games with a calf strain, lasted just one at-bat before limping off the field and out of the rest of this series, possibly longer.\u00c2\u00a0 Meanwhile Felix Hernandez blanked the Bronx Bombers over eight innings as the Mariners won 6-0.\u00c2\u00a0 The only saving grace for the Yankees was that the Rays lost to the A\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s and the Red Sox\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s miseries continued (Dustin Pedroia placed back on the DL, Boston losing 16-2 to the Blue Jays).<\/p>\n The Yanks still lead the AL East by one game, but they can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t keep relying on favours from other teams.\u00c2\u00a0 Javier Vazquez has been battling \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcdead arm\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 issues of late and the Bronx faithful will not be overly confident of their fortunes changing today with him on the mound.<\/p>\n 21.10. Texas at Baltimore (Cliff Lee – Brad Bergesen)<\/strong><\/p>\n The Rangers received a strong start from C.J. Wilson yesterday to tie this four-game series at 1-1 and this is where the mid-season acquisition of Cliff Lee can really make a difference.\u00c2\u00a0 Ron Washington will be backing his starting pitcher to ensure his team gets at least a split from this series today.\u00c2\u00a0 Lee has conceded ten runs in his last two starts, but those have been against the Rays and Yankees and few would bet against him returning to form by pitching a gem against the Orioles.<\/p>\n 21.10. LA Angels at Minnesota (Trevor Bell – Kevin Slowey)<\/strong> * ESPN America<\/strong><\/p>\n The Twins have been in great form of late, winning twelve of their last fifteen games including a 4-2 record over the closest rivals in the AL Central: the Chicago White Sox.\u00c2\u00a0 Brian Duensing struck-out six Angels over eight innings yesterday, conceding just one run in the process, while the Twins pegged Dan Haren for seven runs over seven innings as they won 7-2.\u00c2\u00a0 Kevin Slowey was taken out of his start last Sunday against the A\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s after seven innings, despite having a no-hitter going.\u00c2\u00a0 Manager Ron Gardenhire received some boos from the Target Field crowd, but it seemed the sensible move considering his pitch count (106) and the elbow problems Slowey has had of late.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n 21.10. Atlanta at Chicago Cubs (Tommy Hanson – Tom Gorzelanny)<\/strong><\/p>\n Yesterday\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s early game from Wrigley Field was a cracker, although not in a good way for the home team.\u00c2\u00a0 The Cubs led 3-2 heading into the top of the ninth, only for closer Carlos Marmol to let the game slip.\u00c2\u00a0 Former Cardinal Rick Ankiel delivered the fatal blow, a bases-loaded triple that brought home three runs to give the Braves a 5-3 lead, which Billy Wagner held on to in the bottom of the frame.\u00c2\u00a0 Tommy Hanson has been in excellent form of late for Atlanta, putting up a 1.71 ERA in nine starts during July and August so far, although he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s only been credited with one win over that span and that was back on 3 July.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n All the above games can be followed via various resources on MLB.com<\/a> (Gameday, At Bat with Gameday Audio and MLB.tv).\u00c2\u00a0 ESPN America<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0is showing the\u00c2\u00a0Angels-Twins game.<\/em> A complete schedule of MLB games can be found on MLB.com<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Previewing the four early MLB games starting before midnight today<\/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":[107,104,82,120,25,70,125,110,553,66,98,127,126],"class_list":["post-8951","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-baseball-coverage","category-mlb-2","tag-atlanta-braves","tag-baltimore-orioles","tag-bst-guide","tag-chicago-cubs","tag-espn-america","tag-gamedayaudio","tag-los-angeles-angels","tag-minnesota-twins","tag-mlb-2","tag-mlb-tv","tag-new-york-yankees","tag-seattle-mariners","tag-texas-rangers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8951","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=8951"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8951\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8961,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8951\/revisions\/8961"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8951"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8951"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8951"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}