Editor's note: our picks model isn't live yet, so only the marquee game carries a Vegas line. Every game below links to its live tile on Uristocrat Watch, with scores, where to watch and start times.
Saturday is a big baseball day. There are 15 MLB games, starting at 2:10 p.m. ET in Chicago and running into the night on the West Coast. The best one is in St. Petersburg, where the Red Sox are still chasing the Rays in the AL East. The WNBA has three games, and the first one tips at 1 p.m. ET on CBS.
Marquee: Red Sox at Rays, AL East (4:10 p.m. ET, NESN / Rays.TV)
This is the middle game of the weekend series at Tropicana Field. Tampa Bay is 93-60, leads the division and has already clinched a playoff spot. Boston is 84-70 and holds the second AL wild card, so every win matters more to them right now. The pitching matchup favors Boston on paper. Payton Tolle, a 23-year-old lefty, is 9-6 with a 3.02 ERA and 166 strikeouts in 143 innings, per the MLB.com series preview. Freddy Peralta's season numbers are worse (9-11, 4.67 ERA), but he's allowed two earned runs over his last four starts, and he held Houston hitless for five innings on Sept. 13. So the market is backing Peralta's recent form over Tolle's full season.
Vegas line: Rays -157, Red Sox +129, run line Rays -1.5, total 7.5 (DraftKings, via ESPN).
Also today
- Mercury at Wings (1 p.m. ET, CBS). Dallas is 25-16 and Phoenix is 15-26. It's the national TV game, so it's the easiest WNBA game to find today.
- Phillies at Mets (4:10 p.m. ET, SNY / NBC Sports Philadelphia). Philadelphia is 85-69 and New York is 70-84. Andrew Painter starts for the Phillies against Christian Scott.
- Cubs at Reds (6:40 p.m. ET, Marquee Sports Network). The Cubs are 85-69 and send Matthew Boyd to the mound. Nick Lodolo starts for the 72-82 Reds.
- Braves at Astros (7:10 p.m. ET, BravesVision / Space City Home Network). Atlanta comes in at 90-64. Houston is 77-77 and trying to stay relevant in the last two weeks.
- Yankees at D-backs (8:10 p.m. ET, YES). The Yankees are 89-64. Arizona is 80-74 and needs wins more than New York does.
- Giants at Dodgers (9:10 p.m. ET, SportsNet LA). The Dodgers are 94-60 and San Francisco is 64-90. Worth it for a late game if you're up.
Two weeks are left in the regular season, and most of the tension is in the wild-card races, not the division leaders. Boston's game in Tampa is the clearest example today. A good Tolle start keeps them in the second wild-card spot. A Peralta win makes the weekend a lot harder for Boston.
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