The MLB schedule will be sharing time with the World Cup over the next few weeks.
Home nation Brazil will get the tournament started at 21.00 on Thursday against Croatia. MLB is kindly offering an enticing lead-up to that sporting event with at least one pre-midnight start on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday and then even a few games to choose from on the Thursday itself.
Indeed, a Zack Greinke start against the Reds, or the excellent pitching duel in prospect between Andrew Cashner and Cole Hamels, should be the perfect appetizer for the Thursday night World Cup opener.
Friday is the only working-week evening without an early MLB game, but the superstitious will not be too concerned at that with the number 13 looming large over that day.
One thing to highlight is that ESPN is covering tennis in the evenings this week so the MLB games being broadcast on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday will be on the BT Sport channels instead.
MLB.com is also helping us out this week in choosing three pre-midnight games as their Free Game of the Day. For the uninitiated, MLB.com choose one game per day that you can watch online for free without paying for the MLB.TV subscription. If you’ve thought about subscribing but aren’t sure how well it will work with your broadband, these free games are an excellent way to trial the service.
All times are in BST.
Monday 9 June
18.10. Seattle at Tampa Bay (Ramirez -Â Price)
Tuesday 10 June
20.40. Houston at Arizona (Peacock – Arroyo) BT Sport2, MLB.com Free Game
Wednesday 11 June
17.37. Minnesota at Toronto (Hughes – Stroman) MLB.com Free Game
19.10. Cleveland at Kansas City (Bauer – Guthrie) BT Sport2
Thursday 12 June
17.35. LA Dodgers at Cincinnati (Greinke – Simon) MLB.com Free Game
18.05. San Diego at Philadelphia (Cashner – Hamels)
20.10. Atlanta at Colorado (Santana – Chacin) BT Sport1
20.45. Washington at San Francisco (Treinen – Hudson)
Friday 13 June
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 are highlighted above. The complete schedule for this week’s MLB games can be found on MLB.com