It’s almost certain that, with two weeks to go in the regular season, three of the five National League playoff spots will be taken by teams from the Central division.
It’s fortunate for us therefore that the three protagonists – the Cardinals, Cubs and Pirates – are scheduled to play day-games this working week in contests that will have a playoff atmosphere.
Two of them are games from the Cubs-Pirates series and Tuesday’s potential pitching match-up between Jon Lester and Gerrit Cole could well be a dress rehearsal for a thrilling Wild Card game. That makes it all the more pleasing that BT Sport have found space in their schedule to show it live on Tuesday despite that being the first night of their Champions League coverage.
That’s assuming the Cardinals will keep a hold of the top spot in the division. That will not be easy and the Cubs will look to a series at Wrigley Field to eat into their lead, the first game of which brings us a great start to the weekend on Friday evening.
All times are in BST.
Monday 14 September
No early games
Tuesday 15 September
Wednesday 16 September
No early games
Thursday 17 September
17.35. Chicago Cubs at Pittsburgh (Hendricks – Morton) *BT Sport/ESPN
19.10. Oakland at Chicago White Sox (Nolin – Quintana)
Friday 18 September
19.20. St Louis at Chicago Cubs (Lynn – Haren) *BT Sport/ESPN
All of these games are available to watch or listen to live via an MLB.TV subscription. TV coverage of MLB comes courtesy of the BT Sport and ESPN channels and these are highlighted above, as are any games that are available to view online for free via MLB.com. The above list of games just shows those starting before midnight UK time. The full schedule of MLB games can be found on MLB.com.
