Tampa Bay and Kansas City provide some pre-midnight baseball to enjoy on Bank Holiday Monday as we begin the last week in August.
The two teams are shoe-horning in a make-up game from an earlier series, meaning Tampa Bay have had to travel to the Kauffman Stadium for one game after finishing their home series against the New York Yankees on Sunday before then heading straight back home to start a series against the Los Angeles Angels on Tuesday.
That’s a tough travel schedule, especially after the Boston Red Sox beat the Los Angeles Dodgers on the ESPN Sunday Night game to move ahead of the Rays at the top of the AL East. The Royals beat the Washington Nationals on Sunday to snap their seven-game losing streak.
Later in the week, the Dodgers and Rangers continue their playoff pushes with games against the Cubs and Mariners respectively on Wednesday. Texas will have to contend with Felix Hernandez in their contest.
There’s then a good group of early games on Thursday. Jarrod Parker and Max Scherzer should provide a strong pitching match-up between the A’s and Tigers, whilst David Price is due to take to the mound for the Rays against the Angels and Matt Harvey will make a start for the Mets against the Phillies. The Mets are still deliberating on precisely how they will limit Harvey’s innings from here to end his stunning season, so don’t miss this opportunity to catch him in action. [Edit:Harvey now will not make this start after the hugely disappointing news announced on Monday evening that he has a partially torn UCL in his pitching elbow]
The Phillies start a series in Chicago on Friday and should have Roy Halladay on the mound for his second start since more than three months out following right shoulder surgery. Halladay showed encouraging signs in his first start back on Sunday, pitching six innings and conceding only two runs as his team beat the Diamondbacks.
All times are in BST.
Monday 26 August
19.10. Tampa Bay at Kansas City (Hellickson – Guthrie)
Tuesday 27 August
No early games
Wednesday 28 August
20.10. Chicago Cubs at LA Dodgers (Jackson – Nolasco)
20.40. Texas at Seattle (Perez – Hernandez) *ESPN
Thursday 29 August
18.08. Oakland at Detroit (Parker – Scherzer) *ESPN
18.10. Kansas City at Minnesota (Davis – Deduno)
18.10. Philadelphia at NY Mets (Martin – Harvey)
18.10. LA Angels at Tampa Bay (Richards – Price)
Friday 30 August
19.20. Philadelphia at Chicago Cubs (Halladay – Samardzija)
All of these games are available to watch live via the MLB.TV subscription at MLB.com. The early games being shown on ESPN are highlighted above. 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
