Daily Sports: More NL Central Action Keys Tuesday

The NL Central race was the focus of Monday in daily sports, and so it is again on Tuesday. The second game of the Reds-Cardinals series from St. Louis is the cornerstone of the sports fans’ TV agenda tonight, and will go at 8 PM ET on the MLB Network.

There’s a nice coalition of other sports, features and game replays to go in support of Cincy-St. Loo. Most notably, the U.S. Open tennis tournament got rolling yesterday and will continue through September 9. ESPN2 will have live first-round coverage from 1 PM ET to 7 PM ET.

ESPN will have the NFL on its mind tonight in prime-time, and a special feature on Robert Griffin III will air at 7 PM ET. The program on the dynamic Redskins’ quarterback is called “RG3: The Will To Win.” The ‘Skins are my favorite team, and I’ve drank so much RG3 Kool-Aid over the past year that I’m truly bleeding burgundy-and-gold right now. It’s not the biggest event on the sports calendar tonight, but it’s the one I’ll be tuning into.

NFL Network will be airing replays of preseason games from last week throughout the day and the prime-time choice is Chiefs-Steelers at 8 PM ET. Kansas City lost tight end Tony Moeaki in this game for what’s still an undisclosed period of time. It probably doesn’t affect anyone’s playoff predictions, but new KC quarterback Alex Smith could have used Moeaki to enhance the short passing game.

This past June we witnessed one of the great NBA Finals of all time, when the Miami Heat and San Antonio Spurs battled through seven games. The Finals that I repeatedly compared it to was the one the Los Angeles Lakers and Detroit Pistons played in 1988. One of the highlights of ’88 was Game 6, with Isiah Thomas filling the box score while playing on a sprained ankle, but the Lakers surviving in the end. NBA-TV will present Game 6 at 8 PM ET.

And here at TheSportsNotebook, our focus is going to be NFL analysis, with the teams of the NFC North being previewed throughout the day. Preseason college football coverage wrapped up yesterday, and of course we’ll be back on that topic by tomorrow with the first games starting on Thursday. MLB coverage yesterday looked at the American League playoff race, with a special focus on bullpens that might make a difference—good or bad—down the stretch.