Home MLBBST Game Guides Saturday: The action continues

Saturday: The action continues

by Matt Smith

Friday produced a typically varied and action-packed night of baseball in MLB.

There was some sloppy fielding and base-running displays on show that you wouldn’t normally expect to see at the Big League level, but there were plenty of dramatic moments to go alongside them, from the Angels winning on a wild pitch, Manny Machado going deep twice in his second Major League game for the Orioles, and Stephen Strasburg dealing the Nationals to their seventh consecutive win.

The action continues with four MLB games scheduled to start before midnight U.K. time on Saturday.

18.07. NY Yankees at Toronto (Nova – Laffey) *ESPN America

The Yankees have done a good job in recent seasons getting valuable contributions from veterans and it looks like the recent trade for Ichiro is continuing that trend. He knocked in five runs yesterday as the Yankees beat the Blue Jays 10-4 for their third win in a row. Ivan Nova has been hit for 16 runs combined in his past two appearances to raise his ERA from 4.08 to 4.81. He’ll want to start bringing that back down again with a return to form today.

21.05. Cincinnati at Chicago Cubs (Arroyo – Wood)

The Reds had lost five games in a row before their day-game against the Cubs on Friday. Chicago kindly helped them find a way out of their losing sequence with an abject display that included five errors, two of which came on the same play that allowed Drew Stubbs to score following an attempted steal of second base (yes, you did read that correctly). The Cubs did ultimately keep the game close as Cincinnati ran out victors 10-8, but Chicago’s manager Dale Sveum is sure to have had some stern words with his team and will be looking for a positive reaction today.

21.05. Colorado at San Francisco (Pomeranz – Cain) *ESPN America

The Rockies’ pitching staff has taken a pounding this season, on and off the field, so let’s give Tyler Chatwood, Adam Ottavino, Matt Belisle and Rafael Betancourt some credit for combining for a three-hit shutout of the Giants on Friday.  That zero on the scoreboard meant that Tim Lincecum’s seven innings of three-run ball still landed him with his 12th loss of the season; however it was a good outing overall for the two-time Cy Young winner and the Giants have to be happy with the way he has pitched since the All-Star break (2.72 ERA). Matt Cain will look to help the Giants even up the series today.

23.05. Boston at Cleveland (Morales – McAllister)

The Red Sox’s game against Cleveland on Friday summed up their season. The positive news of a 3-2 win and a strong nine-inning showing by Clay Buchholz was cancelled out by Will Middlebrooks taking a 95 MPH fastball off his right wrist in the top of the ninth inning. Early reports suggest Middlebrooks has suffered a broken wrist which would likely bring his season to a premature close. Left-hander Franklin Morales will try to raise Boston’s morale today.

All of these games are available to watch live via the MLB.TV subscription at MLB.com, while ESPN America has a baseball triple-header with the two games noted above being followed by Atlanta at New York Mets from midnight.  The full schedule for today’s games can be found on MLB.com.

You may also like

Leave a Comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.