It’s the final Saturday of the 2011 MLB regular season and the early game schedule takes us into the heart and heat of the two remaining playoff place battles.
The Arizona Diamondbacks, Milwaukee Brewers and Texas Rangers all clinched their respective division on Friday, leaving the two Wild Card spots as the only open slots to be decided.
All times are in BST.
18.05. Atlanta at Washington (Beachy – Wang)
18.05. Minnesota at Cleveland (Duensing – Huff)
18.10. Chicago Cubs at St. Louis (Lopez – Lohse)
18.10. Philadelphia at NY Mets (Hamels – Dickey)
21.10. Boston at NY Yankees (Lester – Garcia)
21.10. Seattle at Texas (Hernandez – Ogando)
At this stage of the season, the word that keeps coming to mind is ‘pressure’.Â
The Atlanta Braves have been in free fall of late, with the weight of a potentially embarrassing collapse dragging the team down.
They were desperate for a win yesterday and they got one against Stephen Strasburg and the Washington Nationals. Combined with the St. Louis Cardinals losing to the Cubs, it was a win that gives them a bit of breathing space (three games in the standings), but they cannot afford to be complacent.
If the results are reversed today then the Cardinals could still beat the Braves to the Wild Card. There’s a lot of pressure on Brandon Beachy and Kyle Lohse to give their respective team a strong start in what will surely be two high pressure games. Their opponents are playing out the string and that makes them dangerous as they really have nothing to lose.
The Boston Red Sox can fully appreciate the pressure that the Braves have been under of late as they have been in the same – possibly a worse – position. They got a break yesterday as the Rays slipped up against the Blue Jays while the rain in New York forced the postponement of Boston’s game against the Yankees. That meant they increased their Wild Card lead by half a game without taking the field.
A 2.5 game lead should be enough of a gap for the Red Sox to limp over the line with so few games to go. Mind you, many would argue that with their talent and resources, the Red Sox shouldn’t have been in this position in the first place. The fact that they are should give the Rays some hope and it’s almost got to the stage where they can play their next couple of games without any pressure, knowing that to a large extent their fate is not in their own hands.
As for the Red Sox, games against the Yankees are always extremely competitive regardless of New York potentially resting a few of their regulars. Make no mistake, the pressure is still on Boston, particularly with yesterday’s rainout leading to a double-header on Sunday and the maddening (for Red Sox fans) John Lackey scheduled to start one of those games. Jon Lester is precisely the pitcher that they would have wanted to be on the mound for such an important game today.
Every game is precious with so few left to enjoy, but the games in Washington, St. Louis and New York today will be especially entertaining and we can enjoy them live during the British evening.
All of these games are available to watch live via the MLB.TV subscription at MLB.com.  ESPN America is covering college football this evening rather than the baseball.  The full schedule for this weekend’s games can be found on MLB.com.
