It’s a week of feast and famine for MLB games starting before midnight U.K. time.
There are no early games on Monday, Tuesday and Friday; however there are fourteen such games combined on Wednesday and Thursday and, subject to any scheduling changes, they include some excellent pitching match-ups.
On Wednesday, there’s a good match-up in New York with Ricky Romero and Hiroki Kuroda, while James McDonald should be pitching for the Pirates against the Rockies. The two big match-ups though will be at Miller Park and Dodger Stadium. (Update: with all due respect to Tyler Thornburg, that’s changed in the latter case by the Brewers’ decision to skip Zack Greinke from his scheduled start).
Thursday’s early games include four first pitches before six o’clock. The day’s play starts off with a pitching match-up at Turner Field between Madison Bumgarner and Tim Hudson. The Mets’ R.A. Dickey was hit around a bit by the Braves last time out and he’ll look to re-find his excellent first-half form against the Washington Nationals, who should counter with Gio Gonzalez.
A little later in the evening, King Felix Hernandez is the probable pitcher for the Mariners. He absolutely dominated the hard-hitting Rangers last time out. Good luck to the Royals hitters not getting a day off on Thursday.
All times are in BST.
Monday 16 July
No early games
Tuesday 17 July
No early games
Wednesday 18 July
18.05. Toronto at NY Yankees (Romero – Kuroda)
19.10. St. Louis at Milwaukee (Wainwright – Thornburg)
20.10. Philadelphia at LA Dodgers (Lee – Kershaw)
20.10. Pittsburgh at Colorado (McDonald – Guthrie)
20.35. Texas at Oakland (Lewis – Blackley) *ESPN America
20.35. Houston at San Diego (Rodriguez – Richard) *MLB.com Free Game of the Day
Thursday 19 July
17.10. San Francisco at Atlanta (Bumgarner – Hudson)
17.10. Cleveland at Tampa Bay (Jimenez – Price)
17.35. Arizona at Cincinnati (Saunders – Leake)
17.35. NY Mets at Washington (Dickey – Gonzalez)
18.05. LA Angels at Detroit (Williams – Scherzer) *ESPN America
18.10. Baltimore at Minnesota (Chen – De Vries)
19.10. Seattle at Kansas City (Hernandez – Hochevar) *MLB.com Free Game of the Day
19.20. Miami at Chicago Cubs (Buehrle – Maholm)
Friday 20 July
No early games.
All of these games are available to watch live via the MLB.TV subscription at MLB.com. The early games being shown on ESPN America are highlighted above, while the full ESPN/ESPN America schedule can be found on their website. BBC 5 Live Sports Extra can be found on digital radio, digital TV and on the BBC.co.uk website (coverage on the website is only available to UK residents). The complete schedule for this week’s MLB games can be found on MLB.com.
