Must-See Games on TV This Week

Planning your baseball viewing over the next week? First-time contributor Gavin Tramps has you covered…

Despite some intriguing matchups, it is not a great week to be an MLB fan in the UK. Unless you subscribe to MLB.TV, there are very few exciting clashes scheduled to be televised.

The best matchups both feature the Dodgers, who are currently half a game behind the Rockies in the NL West and tied with the Cardinals for the final Wild Card spot. Unfortunately, both games are in the early hours.

MLB.TV is showing three free games at good times for UK viewers, starting with Jon Lester searching for his 16th win as the Cubs host the Reds at 9:00 pm on Saturday.

This is followed on Sunday by the Nationals against the Braves at 6:35 pm. With the Braves on a six-game winning streak and the Phillies losing five of their last six, the NL East championship looks to be heading to Atlanta.

On Wednesday, the Rays take on the Rangers at 7:05 pm. Despite winning 18 of their last 23 games, the Rays are still trailing the Athletics by nine games. This is likely to be an unbridgeable gap, unless Oakland slumps like their Bay Area rivals. The San Francisco Giants just snapped an 11-game losing streak.

You can catch the Athletics on Facebook Watch at 8:35 pm on Thursday, in a game which pits them against the best player in the world and the rest of the Angels.

It seems unlikely that the Athletics will relinquish their grip on the second Wild Card spot, so we can start looking forward to their mouth-watering, one-game playoff against the Yankees on Wednesday 3 October.

If you are excited about next year’s MLB games in London, the Yankees face the Red Sox just after midnight on both Wednesday and Thursday this week. The Red Sox are 8-5 up in this year’s clashes, and both games are live on BT Sport.

There is only one pre-midnight game on BT Sport this week, and that features the Chicago derby with the 58-89 White Sox against the NL Central-leading Cubs. Catch it at 9:00 pm on Friday 21 September.

If you need more baseball action, UK subscribers to MLB.TV can see every single MLB game with no blackouts. You can get all remaining regular season games and every single postseason game for a reduced rate of around £20.