The summer reruns have started on sports. Tuesday is a day that looks an awful lot like Monday in terms of daily sports choices on TV. Afternoon coverage of Wimbledon goes up to 4 PM ET on ESPN2. Then at night the baseball focus is the San Francisco Giants and Cincinnati Reds (7 PM ET, MLB Network).
The continued dithering of the Detroit Tigers has kept the AL Central race interesting. Most of that attention rightly centers on the Cleveland Indians, who are in a virtual tie for first coming into Monday’s games. Some media observers have noted Kansas City on the outside. There’s one more team in the mix too—completely under the radar is the fact the Minnesota Twins are only six games out of the lead. Is it time to consider the Twins a legit dark horse contender if Detroit can’t get it together?
The rise of the Pittsburgh Pirates has created problems for a lot of teams in the National League, but in writing yesterday’s feature on the Buccos here in TheSportsNotebook, I was thinking that perhaps the two biggest victims were San Francisco and Cincinnati.
It’s been a troubled year for the Los Angeles Dodgers, who have joined their local brethren in the Angels and Lakers as overpriced disappointments. But the weakness of the NL West means hope for the Dodgers, whose 37-43 record coming into Sunday has them only 4 ½ games off the pace. The second half of the season at least resembles the chance for a new beginning. Is the worst now behind the Dodgers, and can they take advantage of this second chance?
After twenty years of losing baseball and a September collapse last season, the Pittsburgh Pirates have their share of doubters. One of them has been TheSportsNotebook. I’ve resisted and resisted acknowledging this team, especially on my Monday podcasts with Pirate believer Greg DePalma, but here we are on the final day of June and coming into today’s games it’s the Pirates who have the best record in all of baseball.
A rematch of last year’s AL East race, and subsequent showdown in the Division Series is the focal point of TV daily sports action this weekend. The New York Yankees are in Baltimore to play the Orioles, and with this rivalry at its highest point since the days of 1996-97, the national television crews are heading to Camden Yards.
Martin Truex is riding a wave of momentum as the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series goes to the Kentucky Speedway for Saturday night’s Quaker State 400 (7:30 PM ET, TNT). After a strong third-place finish two weeks ago, Truex got the win last week in Sonoma and with it vaulted into 10th place overall, the cutoff point for automatic qualification for the postseason.
There’s good baseball on TV, and the NBA draft yesterday needs to be rehashed, but the most compelling television on Friday night’s daily sports docket lies in a couple documentaries on college sports.
In the packed horse race that is the American League East, the Boston Red Sox have maintained a small, but persistent lead. The margin is currently 3 ½ games coming into Thursday night’s games. But questions regarding the pitching, and a crucial lingering injury make one wonder just how long the Sox can hold on to the top spot in a ruthlessly tough division where all five teams are over .500.
It doesn’t take long for the NBA to turn the page on one season and get everyone looking forward to the next. Exactly one week after the Miami Heat won an epic NBA Finals over the San Antonio Spurs, we have the NBA draft, on ESPN at 7:30 PM ET, the top option in daily sports programming.
The Seattle Mariners are way back in the American League West, 10 ½ games behind the Texas Rangers coming into Wednesday’s games. The Mariners aren’t much closer in the wild-card picture, where they’re nine off the pace. But the season isn’t quite to the halfway point and we always see a team or two we don’t expect make a surge. Could Seattle be that team?
Wednesday night in daily sports is about the AL East and the NBA draft, as most sports fans settle into summer, while fans in Miami and Chicago still pull the confetti out of the hair after the championship celebrations.
