Editor's note: only the marquee game carries a line right now. The rest of the slate runs without picks until our model ships. Live scores and every tile are at watch.uristocrat.com.
Saturday is a rare day where the best game starts before lunch on the West Coast. The two best records in the WNBA meet in Minneapolis at 1pm ET on network television, and then baseball takes over for eleven straight hours, starting with the team that owns the National League walking into Yankee Stadium.
Marquee: Las Vegas Aces at Minnesota Lynx (1:00 PM ET, CBS)
Minnesota is 25-7. Las Vegas is 22-9. Nobody else in the league is close, and this is the kind of game that decides who gets to play at home in October. The wrinkle is Napheesa Collier, who is only now working her way back after offseason surgery on both ankles. The Lynx built the best record in basketball without her, which is either a sign of how deep they are or a warning that reintegrating an 18.8-point scorer mid-season takes a few games to sort out. Los Angeles snapped Minnesota's ten-game winning streak on Thursday, so the Lynx come in annoyed. For Las Vegas, it runs through A'ja Wilson, who leads the Aces in essentially everything but assists. Both teams shoot roughly 49 percent, so the total is going to hinge on which defense holds up.
Vegas line: Lynx -5.5 (-105), total 182.5, moneyline MIN -218 / LV +180. Odds via ESPN, sourced from DraftKings.
Also today
- Atlanta Braves at New York Yankees (3:05 PM ET). Atlanta is 70-46, the best record in the National League. New York is 65-51 and needs games like this to keep pace in the American League. Interleague matchups this good are an accident of the schedule, and this one lands on a Saturday afternoon at Yankee Stadium.
- Minnesota Twins at Milwaukee Brewers (7:10 PM ET). Milwaukee is 72-44, the best record in baseball. The Twins are 58-59 and playing for their season. The Brewers have quietly been the most consistent team in the sport all year and almost nobody is talking about it.
- Chicago Cubs at Kansas City Royals (7:10 PM ET). The Cubs are 68-49 and chasing Milwaukee in the Central. Kansas City is 48-69 and out of it, which makes this the kind of game a contender is supposed to win and occasionally does not.
- Los Angeles Dodgers at Arizona Diamondbacks (8:10 PM ET). Los Angeles is 69-47, Arizona is 62-55, and the West is tighter than it has been in years. Chase Field in August is a hitter's park with the roof shut.
- Tampa Bay Rays at Seattle Mariners (9:50 PM ET). The Rays are 69-46 and have been the best story in the American League. This is the late window if you want one game to fall asleep to.
- Indiana Fever at Chicago Sky (3:30 PM ET, ABC). Indiana is 19-12 and fighting for playoff position. Chicago is 12-19 and playing spoiler at home in a building that gets loud when the Fever are in town.
- Seattle Storm at Portland Fire (8:30 PM ET). Portland's expansion season has been better than Seattle's rebuild, which is not how anyone drew this up. The Storm are 6-27.
The thread today is teams proving they belong at the top. Minnesota, Milwaukee, Atlanta, and Tampa Bay all own the best or near-best record in their leagues, and all four play somebody with a reason to take a swing at them. Pick a screen and stay there.
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