Baseball returns to Boston this weekend as the Red Sox host the Baltimore Orioles at an eerily empty Fenway Park. But it’s still a joy to have the national pastime back tonight, and this divisional showdown should give us an indication on who might be able to challenge the Yankees in the AL East over the shortened 60 game season. Follow our guide as we explain how to watch MLB online and get an Orioles vs Red Sox live stream, no matter where you are in the world right now.
Orioles vs Red Sox cheat sheet
The Orioles vs Red Sox is a three-game AL East series with coverage available on NESN throughout New England and on MASN in the Baltimore area:
Game 1 – Friday, July 24 at 7.30pm ET/4.30pm PT
Game 2 – Saturday, July 25 at 1.35pm ET/10.35am PT
Game 3 – Sunday, July 26 at 1.35pm ET/10.35am PT
The Sox are typically neck-and-neck with the Yanks in the East, but the 2020 season could well be a rebuilding year in Beantown. In the off-season, when the Evil Empire were busy splashing $324 million on a new ace in Gerrit Cole, the Red Sox instead sent arguably the best player in baseball, 2018 league MVP Mookie Betts, and star pitcher David Price to the Dodgers in exchange for Alex Verdugo and a pair of prospects.
Sure, pessimism comes free with the price of parking in Boston, but financial relief or otherwise, it’s instantly gone down in the The Hub as the dumbest trade this side of Babe Ruth.
The Orioles represent a sympathetic matchup to start to the season for the BoSox, however, with the O’s sitting at the bottom of nearly every pre-season MLB power rankings list around. Their best player, pitcher John Means, won’t toe the slab in Saturday’s opener due to ‘dead arm’, being replaced on the mound by journeyman Tommy Milone (4-10 last year with the Mariners), who’ll go against the Sox’s Nate Eovaldi.
Can the O’s upset the odds? Read on to see how easy it is to watch the Orioles vs Red Sox this Friday, Saturday and Sunday – get an MLB live stream from anywhere with the help of our guide.
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How to watch the Orioles vs Red Sox from outside your country
If you’re in the US tonight, then getting an Orioles vs Red Sox live stream is only easy if you’re based in either the Boston or Baltimore areas – and have cable TV. If this is the case, you’ll find coverage of the game on local TV, complete with the option to stream online via the channel’s website.
Anyone without cable might run into more difficulty, however, as the most useful overall baseball streaming service – MLB.TV – is designed for out-of-market viewing, meaning coverage is blacked out for anyone who lives in the same area as their team.
Fortunately, a solution exists in the form of a VPN – a handy bit of software that lets you re-route your device’s IP address to a location of your choice, thereby giving you the ability to circumvent these outdated blackout restrictions.
A Virtual Private Network also come in handy when you’re out of the US and geo-blocking stops you from watching the same services and content you normally would at home – even when you pay for them. This makes a VPN an essential bit of equipment for your digital bat bag – but which one should you swing for?
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Don’t forget that a VPN isn’t just for baseball, either There’s loads you can do with these clever bits of software. From unblocking restricted sites and watching Netflix in other countries ,to adding an extra layer of security for online shopping and banking, Virtual Private Networks offer loads of benefits beyond watching the Orioles vs Red Sox tonight.
Orioles vs Red Sox live stream: how to watch the MLB series online in the US
This weekend’s Orioles vs Red Sox series hasn’t been selected for national television. ESPN+ has picked up tonight’s opener for streaming, but in the main it’s in-market viewing options you’re after, so you’ll need to turn to your local sports broadcaster.
In Boston and throughout New England, this means NESN, which is available to watch online with cable TV (just log-in with details of your provider) or stream via an over-the-top service.
Two of the most popular OTT offerings around carry NESN – fuboTV ($54.99 p/m) and YouTube TV ($64.99 p/m). Of these, YouTube TV is your best bet and easily worth the extra 10 bucks a month, as in addition to NESN you also get all four cable channels that show nationally televised gamed: ESPN, Fox Sports, TBS and MLB Network.
Fubo only has one of these (Fox), making it something of a whiff for baseball fans. In the Baltimore area, coverage is on MASN (Mid-Atlantic Sports Network), which isn’t available via any OTT services we’re aware of.
The out-of-market option is the excellent MLB.TV, which will let you watch every game of the MLB season online for a one-off payment of $59.99 (or $49.99 for a single team). But there’s a huge catch in that all of its streaming is subject to local blackouts, so Sox and Orioles fans in Boston and Baltimore won’t be able to watch this weekend’s games – unless they use a VPN as per our guide above.
How to watch the Red Sox vs Orioles: live stream MLB in the UK
BT Sport has the TV rights to MLB action in the UK through 2021 and you’ll find all the channels you need available through one BT’s many TV bundles, or as an add-on for Sky TV and Virgin Media customers.
However, it’s not airing any of this weekend’s Red Sox vs Orioles series, which sees game 1 starting at 12:30am BST Friday night/early Saturday morning – and games 2 and 3 starting at 6.35pm on Saturday and Sunday evening.
This means UK fans of the Sox, Orioles, or just baseball in general will need to turn to MLB.TV to watch the Red Sox vs Orioles live this weekend. The MLB streaming service is also available in the UK, where it costs approximately £50 for the full works and blackout rules obviously don’t apply.
How to watch the Orioles vs Red Sox: live stream MLB in Canada
The Orioles vs Red Sox series isn’t being shown on Canadian TV, so your only option to watch it online is via MLB.TV.
That’s no bad thing, though, as $59.99 will get you live streaming access to nearly every game of the regular season (only the Blue Jays are subject to blackouts in Canada and there’s always the VPN workaround for these) – plus coverage of the playoffs and World Series.
In addition, MLB.TV gives you the option of home or away team commentary, offers companion apps for nearly any modern device, and provides a super-smooth 60fps feed for great picture quality.
Timings of the games are the same as in the US, so a 7.30pm ET/4.30pm PT start on Friday – and 1.35pm/10.35am starts on Saturday and Sunday.