Mets, Braves Duel With NL East on the Line
Happy Friday! The final weekend in baseball’s regular season is upon us as the calendar gets ready to flip to October. That’s where our focus will be tonight ahead of a big football weekend. Most MLB postseason races are settled, but the NL East and final wild-card place are still up for grabs. The Mariners can finally officially end their long postseason drought with a win tonight.
Here’s what I’m watching today.
A quick note: Due to COVID-19, sports schedules are fluid and subject to change.
MUST WATCH:
Lindsey Wasson/USA TODAY Sports
New York Mets at Atlanta Braves
The NL East race all comes down to this weekend. The MLB’s playoff format makes winning the division a huge advantage, eliminating one round of the postseason for the division winner, while the wild-card teams duke it out. The Mets are going all-in for this series, starting aces Jacob deGrom and Max Scherzer on back-to-back nights beginning tonight and calling up top prospect Francisco Álvarez for some extra firepower in the season’s final week. Meanwhile, the Braves have Max Fried on the bump tonight to face off with deGrom and plenty of big bats in the lineup, including Austin Riley, who Emma Baccellieri profiled in today’s Daily Cover.
7:20 p.m. ET, SNY/Bally Sports Southeast/MLB Network, watch on fuboTV
READ MORE:
- How Austin Riley Became the Cornerstone of the Braves’ Core (Emma Baccellieri)
- How MLB’s Most Confounding Team Is (Mostly) Overcoming Decades of Dysfunction (Stephanie Apstein)
- The Playoffs Start Early in Atlanta (Dan Gartland)
LINEUP:
• Philadelphia Phillies at Washington Nationals | The Phillies are in free fall at the worst possible time, but yesterday’s fifth straight loss didn’t knock them out of the playoffs thanks to the Brewers also losing. Will the Phils avoid yet another late-season collapse? They’ll need to get back on track this weekend against the Nationals, who they’ve beaten in 13 of 15 meetings this season. Game 1 at 1:05 p.m. ET, MASN/NBC Sports Philadelphia, Game 2 at 7:05 p.m. ET, MASN2/NBC Sports Philadelphia, watch on fuboTV
• College football: Tulane at Houston | This serves as the AAC opener for both teams, who’ve had eventful nonconference schedules. Tulane upset Kansas State two weeks ago before a tough loss last week to Southern Mississippi, while Houston has played a pair of overtime games already. 7 p.m. ET, ESPN, watch on fuboTV
• Miami Marlins at Milwaukee Brewers | This battle of aces has huge postseason implications for Milwaukee. The Brewers need Corbin Burnes to outduel Sandy Alcantara tonight as they try to catch the Phillies in the final week of the NL wild-card race. 8:10 p.m. ET, Bally Sports Florida/Wisconsin, watch on fuboTV
• Women’s volleyball: No. 12 Penn State at No. 8 Wisconsin | 12–1 Penn State goes for a signature win tonight in Madison against the Badgers in what should be an awesome atmosphere. The Badgers set a volleyball attendance record with more than 16,000 fans at a game earlier this month. 9 p.m. ET, Big Ten Network, watch on fuboTV
HIDDEN GEM:
College football: No. 15 Washington at UCLA
The Michael Penix Jr. revival tour has been all kinds of fun to watch. Penix, who entered last season at Indiana in the Heisman conversation before struggling mightily, has regained his magical form from 2020 and has the Huskies in the top 15. And with a relatively favorable Pac-12 schedule that doesn’t feature regular-season matchups with USC or Utah, the path is there for the Huskies to go to the Pac-12 title game. A win tonight on the road against Dorian Thompson-Robinson and UCLA would go a long way toward doing just that.
10:30 p.m. ET, ESPN, watch on fuboTV
Think we missed something worth watching? Reply to guide@si.com and let us know what we should be looking out for and why.
Happy streaming!
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