Chris Sale is 37 years old and has the lowest ERA of any starter Apple TV puts on television Friday night. He walks into Busch Stadium against a 29-year-old the Cardinals never planned to build a rotation around.
Braves at Cardinals: How to Watch
- First pitch: 8:15 p.m. ET, Busch Stadium, St. Louis
- Stream: Apple TV, exclusive, no blackouts
- Probables: LHP Chris Sale (9-6, 2.27) vs. RHP Kyle Leahy (7-4, 3.86)
- Records: Atlanta 54-38, St. Louis 48-44
- Radio: Cardinals on KMOX 1120 AM/104.1 FM; Braves on 680 AM/93.7 FM The Fan
Atlanta Braves’ Mike Yastrzemski, right, celebrates with third base coach Tommy Watkins as he rounds third base after hitting a grand slam home run off Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher Dennis Santana during the ninth inning of a baseball game in Pittsburgh, Thursday, July 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)
Lineups: Braves at Cardinals
Lineups subject to change.
| # | Braves | Pos | AVG |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Michael Harris II | CF | .304 |
| 2 | Ozzie Albies | 2B | .272 |
| 3 | Matt Olson | 1B | .270 |
| 4 | Drake Baldwin | C | .257 |
| 5 | Mauricio Dubón | LF | .273 |
| 6 | Mike Yastrzemski | RF | .229 |
| 7 | Austin Riley | 3B | .207 |
| 8 | Dominic Smith | DH | .268 |
| 9 | Jim Jarvis | SS | .292 |
| # | Cardinals | Pos | AVG |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | JJ Wetherholt | 2B | .267 |
| 2 | Iván Herrera | DH | .249 |
| 3 | Jordan Walker | RF | .294 |
| 4 | Nelson Velázquez | LF | .255 |
| 5 | Alec Burleson | 1B | .278 |
| 6 | Masyn Winn | SS | .247 |
| 7 | José Fermín | CF | .265 |
| 8 | Blaze Jordan | 3B | .229 |
| 9 | Pedro Pagés | C | .214 |
Sale at 37
Sale has made 16 starts in his sixteenth major league season and carries a 2.27 ERA with 112 strikeouts into a building where he has historically had no trouble. Atlanta sits at 54-38 under Walt Weiss and has spent the summer looking like the version of itself everyone expected in April, which is a sentence nobody could write about the other fifteen teams playing Friday.
Atlanta Braves pitcher Chris Sale delivers to a New York Mets batter during the first inning of a baseball game, Saturday, July 4, 2026, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Erik S. Lesser)
Kyle Leahy Was Not the Plan
Leahy has made 17 starts in his fourth season, gone 7-4, and held a 3.86 ERA in a rotation that has been improvising since Opening Day. He is 6-foot-5, switch-hits, and spent most of his career in a bullpen. St. Louis is 48-44 and closer to the wild card than anyone expected, and a meaningful share of that is a reliever who got handed a rotation spot and refused to give it back.
St. Louis Cardinals pitcher Kyle Leahy throws the ball against the Chicago Cubs during the first inning of a baseball game Saturday, July 4, 2026, in Chicago. (AP Photo/David Banks)
Jordan Walker Is Finally the Hitter They Drafted
Walker bats third Friday with 22 home runs, 73 RBI and an .893 OPS, more power than anyone in either lineup save Matt Olson. On Thursday night he turned a three-run homer against Milwaukee. He is 24, listed at 6-foot-6 and 250 pounds, and for three seasons the organization waited for the swing to catch up to the frame. It has. Behind him, Alec Burleson, the teammate mobbing him at the plate in that Thursday photo, hits fifth with a team-high 66 RBI.
St. Louis Cardinals’ JJ Wetherholt (26), Masyn Winn (0) and Lars Nootbaar celebrate a victory over the Arizona Diamondbacks in a baseball game Monday, June 22, 2026, in St. Louis. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson)
Baseball Without Borders at Busch
Thirty-one players have appeared for these two clubs this season who were born outside the United States, and Atlanta accounts for twenty-one of them. Eight are Venezuelan, beginning with Ronald Acuña Jr. and running through Carlos Carrasco, Martín Pérez and Robert Suarez. Ozzie Albies was born in Curaçao. Mauricio Dubón came from Honduras, Ha-Seong Kim from South Korea, and catcher Chadwick Tromp from Aruba, an island of about 107,000 that has produced a small and stubborn line of major leaguers.
St. Louis brings ten. Catcher Iván Herrera, who has started 92 games and bats second Friday, was born in Panama. Ramón Urías and Luis Gastelum came from Mexico, Pedro Pagés and Yohel Pozo from Venezuela, César Prieto from Cuba.
Apple TV carries the broadcast in 60 countries and regions without a blackout map. Acuña’s at-bats will be watched in Venezuela, live, on the same feed as everyone else.
How to Watch Apple TV for Free
Friday Night Baseball streams exclusively on Apple TV. There is no local blackout, which means the game is available in Atlanta, in St. Louis, and anywhere Apple TV reaches. Three ways to get in, and the one most people cite is the wrong one.
- Seven-day free trial. New subscribers get one week before the $12.99 monthly rate begins. Cancel inside the window and Friday’s doubleheader costs nothing.
- Three months free with a device. Buy and activate a new iPhone, iPad, Mac, or Apple TV and three months are included. One offer per Family Sharing group.
- Apple One. The six-service bundle carries a 30-day trial, then starts at $19.95 per month. That is the 30-day offer people are thinking of. It is not the Apple TV trial.
The annual Apple TV plan is $99, which works out near $8.25 a month. Home and away local radio feeds are available to viewers in the United States and Canada during the broadcast, subject to availability.
Devices and Broadcast Team
Apple TV runs on iPhone, iPad, Apple TV 4K, Apple Vision Pro, Mac, smart TVs from Samsung, LG, Sony, VIZIO and TCL, Roku, Amazon Fire TV, Chromecast with Google TV, PlayStation, Xbox, and at tv.apple.com. The broadcast is produced by MLB Network’s production team with Apple’s live sports unit.
Wayne Randazzo, Dontrelle Willis and Heidi Watney form one booth. Alex Faust, Ryan Spilborghs and Tricia Whitaker form the other, with Rich Waltz calling select games. Lauren Gardner hosts the pregame show alongside Eric Hosmer and Russell Dorsey.
What Precedes It
The first half of Friday’s doubleheader sends Sonny Gray and the Red Sox to Citi Field at 7:15 p.m. ET against Nolan McLean and the Mets, also on Apple TV. The windows overlap by roughly an hour, so the fifth inning in Queens is the natural place to change channels.
The 2026 MLB Draft opens Saturday, July 11.
Sale has thrown baseballs for sixteen years and still throws them better than almost anyone. Leahy gets one night to prove he belongs in the same frame. That is the entire sport, compressed into three hours and a free trial.
