Monday sports preview

I hope this becomes a regular feature here at Obscure Sports Quarterly. We’ll see how it evolves. And of course, I pick a slow sports day to start this off.

Note: All times Pacific, because I live out there. GB = Games Behind, WC = Wild Card

GAME OF THE DAY: Minnesota Twins at Seattle Mariners, 7 p.m. (No national TV)

Today is rare in that there are no games between teams with winning records. This is the closest we have to that, and I refuse to pick an exhibition football game or a little league game as my Game of the Day.

This game has a very appealing pitching match-up, featuring Johan Santana vs. Felix Hernandez. That would be fun to watch, if ESPN2 decided to show us this game instead of the much less prestigious Astros-Dodgers game.

The Twins need to get hot badly. They’ve dropped to 58-59, lost four games in a row, getting swept by the Angels over the weekend. Aaron Gleeman already seems to be counting them out. The Twins are now seven games behind the Detroit Tigers for first place (and even further out of the wild card).

The Mariners have played out of their minds this season, but in an American League that is filled with great teams, the Mariners have to keep winning, as this excellent post at Lookout Landing says. At 65-50, the M’s are 3 1/2 games behind the Angels for first place and are tied with the Yankees for the AL Wild Card lead.

THE REST OF THE MLB SCHEDULE:

San Francisco (49-67) at Pittsubrgh (48-66), Doubleheader, Game 1 starts at 2 p.m. Dreadful. Just Dreadful. Probables: Who cares?

Baltimore (54-62) at New York Yankees (66-51, tied for WC lead, 4 GB of 1st), 4 p.m. Remember when people left the Yankees for dead earlier this year? That was dumb. Probables: Jeremy Guthrie at Chien-Ming Wang

Tampa Bay (45-72) at Boston (70-47, 4 game lead), 4 p.m. Nothing cures a slump like the Devil Rays coming to town. Probables: James Shields at Tim Wakefield

Oakland (56-62) at Detroit (65-52, 0.5 game lead), 4 p.m. Detroit is back in first. And part of me is still waiting for the A’s to go on their annual 20-game winning streak. Probables: Chad Gaudin at Chad Durbin

Toronto (59-57, 6.5 GB in WC) at Kansas City (51-65), 5 p.m. The Blue Jays have a winning record and a series against the Royals? Could they get back in the race? Probables: Jesse Litsch at the immortal Odalis Perez

Houston (52-65) at Los Angeles Dodgers (60-57, 3 GB in WC), 7 p.m, Nationally Televised on ESPN2. It was just three weeks ago the Dodgers had the best record in the National League. Probables: Roy Oswalt at Chad Billingsley

OTHER SPORTS ON TV:

Exhibition NFL, Denver Broncos at San Francisco 49ers, 5 p.m., ESPN. This will be overhyped and analyzed all day on the ESPN networks today. And sadly, this game will still probably get higher ratings than Astros-Dodgers on ESPN2.

Little League World Series, Mid-Atlantic Regional Final, 5 p.m. ESPN2. I don’t watch the Little League World Series anymore, because when I used to, I would always scrutinize the players like they were pros. Then I realized I was a horrible person because they were only 12 year olds.