Home MLBBST Game Guides Sunday’s early MLB games: Aces and playoff contenders

Sunday’s early MLB games: Aces and playoff contenders

by Matt Smith

CovHlWESunday should provide a great evening of baseball, with several important games involving playoff contenders and an array of aces taking to the mound.

I stated yesterday that the Atlanta Braves needed Tim Hudson to lead from the front with a big performance and he undoubtedly delivered.  Atlanta’s ace got the better of a pitching duel with the Mets’ R.A. Dickey, striking out ten over eight scoreless innings as the Braves won 1-0.  With the St. Louis Cardinals losing to the Phillies (a result that crowned the Phillies as NL East champions), the Braves’ Wild Card lead extended to 4.5 games.

As for the AL Wild Card race, the Tampa Bay Rays beat the Red Sox yesterday to reduce Boston’s lead to three games.  Tim Wakefield secured a memorable personal milestone by finally getting his 200th career win last time out, but in the grand scheme of things his start today is much more important.  David Price is having a good year and has matched up well against Boston, so the Rays will go into the game confident that they can close the Wild Card gap down to two games.

All times are in BST.

18.07. NY Yankees at Toronto (Garcia – Morrow) *BBC 5 Live Sports Extra
18.10. Milwaukee at Cincinnati (Greinke – Willis)
18.35. LA Angels at Baltimore (Weaver – Simon)
18.35. Tampa Bay at Boston (Price – Wakefield)
18.35. NY Mets at Atlanta (Gee – Beachy)
18.35. Florida at Washington (Hand – Wang)
19.10. Chicago White Sox at Kansas City (Danks – Chen)
19.10. Cleveland at Minnesota (Masterson – Pavano)
19.20. Houston at Chicago Cubs (Myers – Dempster)
20.10. San Francisco at Colorado (Cain – Rogers)
21.05. Detroit at Oakland (Verlander – Moscoso)
21.05. Arizona at San Diego (Saunders – Harang)
21.10. Texas at Seattle (Harrison – Hernandez) *ESPN America
21.10. Pittsburgh at LA Dodgers (Lincoln – Billingsley) 

Nat Coombs and Josh Chetwynd will be bringing us action from Toronto with an historic moment potentially on the cards.  Mariano Rivera earned his 601st career save yesterday, tying Trevor Hoffman for the most saves of all time.  Depending on how today’s game pans out, Rivera may be in line to take sole possession of that category live on the BBC.

The Chicago White Sox and Minnesota Twins are both trying to avoid an eighth straight loss, while the Kansas City Royals and San Francisco Giants are both going for their eighth win in a row.  The Giants are now five games behind in both the Wild Card and NL West races.  The Arizona Diamondbacks, current division leaders, have lost three on the spin.

With Zack Greinke, Jered Weaver, Justin Verlander (looking for win number 24 on the season) and Felix Hernandez all scheduled to make starts as well, it should be a great evening of baseball.

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