Editor's note: Only the marquee game carries a line right now. Everything else here is a slate, not a pick. Every game on the board, with start times and channels, lives at watch.uristocrat.com.
Fifteen baseball games and three WNBA games on a Friday, and the one that matters most is a homecoming in reverse. Max Fried spent seven seasons in Atlanta. Tonight he pitches against them in the Bronx, on national TV, with the Braves sitting six games ahead of his current team in the standings. Everything else tonight is good baseball. This one has a story attached.
Marquee: Braves at Yankees, Max Fried against the team he left (7:05 PM ET, ESPN)
Fried missed almost two months with an elbow problem and came back on July 22. Three starts in, he has given up four earned runs across 13.1 innings with 18 strikeouts and four walks, which is the version of him the Yankees paid for. He is 4-3 with a 3.12 ERA. Atlanta counters with Tyler Mahle at 3-9 and a 5.13 ERA, which is the softest spot in this weekend's rotation matchup. The Braves get Chris Sale on Saturday and Grant Holmes on Sunday, so if they want to take this series they probably need to steal the opener off the arm they used to hand the ball to every fifth day. Atlanta is 70-45 and playing the best baseball of anyone in this building. New York is 64-51 and needs the win more than the record suggests.
Vegas line: Yankees -156, Braves +129, total 8 (per ESPN's MLB odds page). Run line: Yankees -1.5 at +130.
Also tonight
- Blue Jays at Phillies (6:40 PM ET, NBC Sports Philadelphia). Zack Wheeler is 10-2 with a 2.49 ERA and is the best pitcher who will throw a baseball tonight. Toronto sends Jose Soriano, who has been fine at 9-6 and 3.29. The Phillies are 62-54 and Toronto is 54-62, so this one is more about watching Wheeler work than about the standings.
- Twins at Brewers (7:40 PM ET, MLB.TV). Milwaukee is 72-43, the best record in baseball. Shane Drohan takes the ball at 6-4 with a 3.48 ERA against Minnesota's Zebby Matthews, who is 4-8 with a 5.22. The Twins are 57-59 and fading. This is the kind of game the Brewers have spent all season turning into wins nobody notices.
- Dream at Mystics (7:30 PM ET, ION). Atlanta is 19-11, Washington is 17-12, and both are fighting for playoff seeding with about a month left. The Dream are favored by 3.5 on the road. Two teams this close in the standings this late usually means a fourth quarter worth staying up for.
- Dodgers at Diamondbacks (9:40 PM ET, MLB.TV). Roki Sasaki has had an uneven first full year, sitting at 5-5 with a 4.64 ERA, and Arizona's Merrill Kelly is at 8-9 and 5.04. Los Angeles is 69-46, Arizona is 61-55, and Chase Field in August is where run totals go to get inflated.
- Valkyries at Wings (9:30 PM ET, ION). Golden State is 21-9 in its second season, which is not supposed to happen to an expansion team. Dallas is 19-12 and favored by a point and a half at home. Best WNBA game on the board tonight and it tips after most of the baseball is done.
The thread tonight is teams that are already good trying to stay that way. Milwaukee, Atlanta, Los Angeles, and Golden State are all playing opponents they should beat, and August is when those games start deciding seeding instead of just padding a record. The Yankees are the exception. They need this one, and they are handing it to a pitcher with something personal riding on it.
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