The second half of the 2012 MLB season got underway yesterday, although not quite as quickly as we had all hoped for.
The one pre-midnight game on Friday between the D-Backs and Cubs was delayed by 3 hours 40 minutes due to rain, with the first pitch not being thrown until 23.00 BST rather than 19.20.
Hopefully the weather will be kinder to us all today as there is a good selection of MLB games for us to follow live at a convenient time .
All times are in BST.
18.05. LA Angels at NY Yankees (Williams – Garcia)
18.05. Arizona at Chicago Cubs (Saunders – Dempster)
18.07. Cleveland at Toronto (Jimenez – Laffey) *ESPN America, MLB.com Free Game of the Day
21.05. Detroit at Baltimore (Scherzer – Chen)
21.05. NY Mets at Atlanta (Dickey – Hanson) *ESPN America
21.05. St. Louis at Cincinnati (Lohse – Leake)
D-Backs and Cubs fans have another chance to watch their teams battle it out today at just after 6 o’clock. The Yankees won their series opener against the Angels 6-5 last night and will send Freddy Garcia to the mound today in a day-game, while the Indians turn to Ubaldo Jimenez to follow up Justin Masterson’s seven score-less innings that helped them to a narrow 1-0 win over the Blue Jays yesterday.
ESPN America will move on to the Mets v Braves game once the Indians v Blue Jays game is complete. R.A. Dickey and Tommy Hanson are the probable starters in a good match-up in prospect. The Braves took the series opener 7-5, but the victory was not without a cost as Jack Wilson left the game in the seventh inning after dislocating a finger. Wilson was starting at shortstop in place of the injured Andrelton Simmons and the Braves are hoping that Wilson will be able to return to action in a few days. If he faces a longer lay-off then they may need to look to the trade market for a short-term fix.
The Baltimore Orioles suffered a potentially more damaging injury on Friday as Jason Hammel, who had pitched so impressively during the first half, left his start against the Tigers yesterday after just three innings with a knee injury. He will be reevaluated today to find out how serious the injury is.
As for the Tigers, they received a welcome return to form by Doug Fister in yesterday’s 7-2 win and send Max Scherzer to the mound today. It was a good all-around effort by Detroit in the series opener, with Brennan Boesch and Ryan Raburn both bringing runners home and Quintin Berry making an outstanding catch to rob Wilson Betemit. With those complementary players starting to contribute alongside the established core (Miguel Cabrera hit a 451 ft bomb off Luis Ayala for his 19th on the season), the Tigers have won six consecutive games either side of the All-Star Break and look primed for a strong second half.
All of these games are available to watch live via the MLB.TV subscription at MLB.com. ESPN America has a baseball triple-header tonight as the two games listed above are followed by the Nationals v Marlins game from midnight. The full schedule for today’s games can be found on MLB.com.
