Editor's note: only the marquee game carries a Vegas line right now. The rest of the slate is listed without picks. Full tiles, start times, and channels live at watch.uristocrat.com.
Two National League division leaders meet in Atlanta tonight, and the loser does not get to shrug it off. The Dodgers are 80-52, the Braves are 77-55, and Atlanta already took the opener of this series 4-3 on Tuesday to snap a six-game Los Angeles winning streak. Around it: the Brewers, who own the best record in baseball, are at Citi Field, the Cubs are in Phoenix, and the WNBA runs a doubleheader that ends after midnight on the East Coast.
Marquee: Dodgers at Braves, NL division leaders (7:15 PM ET, MLB Network)
Roki Sasaki gets the ball for Los Angeles in his 23rd start of the year. He has 114 strikeouts in 116 2/3 innings and went five against Colorado last time out, giving up two earned runs on seven hits. Atlanta counters with AJ Smith-Shawver, who has barely pitched this season and carries a 6.01 ERA into it. On paper that is a mismatch. In practice the Braves just beat this team by a run, and Truist Park has been the more comfortable building for them all year. Watch the middle innings. If Sasaki is still under 75 pitches in the sixth, the Dodgers bullpen never has to answer the hard question.
Vegas line: Dodgers -127, Braves +119, total 8.5. Odds via DraftKings, listed on ESPN's game odds page.
Also tonight
- Brewers at Mets (7:10 PM ET, SNY). Milwaukee is 81-51, the best record in the sport, and Dustin May starts against a Mets team that has fallen to 60-72. New York's season is effectively over. Milwaukee is still stacking wins for the top seed, which is the only reason this one matters.
- Astros at Yankees (7:05 PM ET, Prime Video). Houston is dead even at 66-66 and the Yankees are 74-57. The national window gets the name value, but this is a first-place club against a .500 club, and Houston has to start winning series like this one to stay in it.
- Cubs at Diamondbacks (3:40 PM ET, ESPN). Matthew Boyd against Eduardo Rodriguez in the desert. Chicago is 76-57 and chasing Milwaukee, so the Cubs cannot afford to trade wins with a 70-63 Arizona team playing out a Wild Card long shot.
- Phillies at Mariners (4:10 PM ET, NBC Sports Philadelphia). Jesus Luzardo faces Bryan Woo at T-Mobile Park, which is the best pitching matchup on the board today. Philadelphia is 73-60. Seattle is 64-69 and running out of runway.
- Valkyries at Sun (7:00 PM ET, WNBA League Pass). Golden State is 26-11 and Connecticut is 10-27, so the result is not the draw. The draw is watching one of the league's best teams handle a night it is supposed to win.
- Tempo at Storm (10:00 PM ET, USA Network). Toronto is 11-26, Seattle is 7-31, and both are done. The draft order is the live stake here.
The thread tonight is separation. Milwaukee, Los Angeles, and Atlanta are all trying to bank position before September, and the teams they are playing mostly are not. That makes Truist Park the one place where both dugouts want the same thing badly enough to make it a real game.
Comments