69 Responses to “Playoff baseball, 10/12”

1. adamt on October 12th, 2006 8:44 pm

   Re #48:

   Rolen DNP in game 4 vs San Diego because of his shoulder; and hasn’t hit well so far in the playoffs. Encarnacion had an important triple in that game 4.

   Re #43:

   I am also surprised that Duncan didn’t get an AB in this game. But, J-Rod and Aaron Miles did. Meh.

2. Josh on October 12th, 2006 9:15 pm

   Wow, I just looked and Encarnacion is strikingly in line with career totals:

   2006 .278/.317/.443 – .760 OPS
   Career .269/.316/.441 – .757 OPS

   BB and K rates are both down from last year. Usefulness on the basepaths now = zilch. 2004-2006: 17 SB, 14 CS. Ouch.

3. Mat on October 12th, 2006 10:15 pm

   Seriously, who does nationally broadcast games and does them well? ESPN?

   I hadn’t seen an ESPN broadcast in a while, but I watched a lot of their playoff games. I thought they were solid. They mostly avoided the temptation to use strange camera angles, had very few extraneous dugout shots, had very few obnoxious pore-exposing face shots, and generally just showed the damn game. After the occaisionally FOX national broadcast, it seemed downright professional. The only really “frill” in their broadcasts is K-Zone, and I happen to like K-Zone, so that’s okay with me.

   ESPN also showed their between innings interviews between innings. I don’t like them bothering the managers during the game, but what’s worse for me as the consumer is missing in-game action because FOX is showing me tape of an interview. And so far during the postseason, my favorite in-game analyst has been Joe Morgan. In the games I’ve seen, he’s largely ignored his quest against statistics, and it makes him a pretty reasonable announcer when he does that. Of course, it’s not like McCarver, Sutcliffe, Karros, and Lyons are stiff competition.

4. colm on October 12th, 2006 10:24 pm

   Joe Morgan always amazes me. How he can have been SUCH a phenomenal ball player, and yet as an announcer maintain such studied ignorance of what it takes to be a good ballplayers is a continual, irritating, baffling enigma.

   And where does Tony La Russa get the rep for being smart? Contrary yes, almost certainly a good manager all told, but scholarly?

5. msb on October 12th, 2006 10:28 pm

   #53. He not only went to college, he got his law degree. He must be a scholar.

6. Mike Hargrove's Cameltoe on October 13th, 2006 12:28 am

   #49: Not at all!

7. EnglishMariner on October 13th, 2006 4:02 am

   You guys think FOX is bad? You try the MLB International feed that gets beamed over here twice a week during the playoffs. During game 2 on A’s Vs Tiger’s t’other day, the bases were loaded with the Big Hurt coming to the plate … and the feed was lost due to weather interference. When it came back, it was just pictures of the stands emptying.

   Rick Sutcliffe is a moron. I have only been watching baseball for six years, but even I don’t say dumb things such as ‘A two run blast with two out and no one on!’ Direct quote from game 2. Idiot.

   I like Morgan and Miller on SNB. Morgan says some dumb things, but he also had a unique perspective on the game that one must respect due to his excellent career. Besides, Miller keeps him in check … most of the time. 😉

8. Bryan on October 13th, 2006 6:41 am

   Joe Morgan’s stupidity is matched only by Sweet Lou’s occasional addition to the Fox broadcast. Say what you will, but Joe Buck is terrific. We all know how badly McCarver sucks, but that is something I’m willing to put up with.

   I’d rather hear Orel than any other of the in-game “analysts”

9. shirts on October 13th, 2006 6:57 am

   I wonder what kind of ratings the game would get with no commentators and better microphone coverage for a “game experience.” I would be in to that.

10. Safeco Hobo on October 13th, 2006 7:27 am

    Does anyone remeber a few years back (i think 2003) when FSN experimented with the broadcast by making minor tweaks during the game? Things like staying with one camera angle, or removing the score/count on the top of the screen for a half inning. Most of them were pointless or frustrating but the one i appreciated the most was when they turned up the field mics and turned off Rizzs. Made it difficult to follow if you weren’t paying 100% attention, but overall was a better experience.

    So i guess i would say, no play by play is better than bad play by play.

11. DKJ on October 13th, 2006 7:51 am

    I enjoy “Soup” Dave Campbell on radio. He is not the Dizzy Dean of my childhood, but I could picture him having an intelligent and entertaining conversation with Diz. It’s the tone of voice as much as the content of his comments.

    Of course, I doubt if Diz would have been hep to the stat geek phenomenon, but could we agree to forgive him based on his HOF, 30-game winner, baseball is actually FUN attitude?

12. metz123 on October 13th, 2006 9:14 am

    Soup’s not bad. He’s significantly better than FireJoeMorgan and Tim “let me continue beating this dead horse” McCarver.

13. Evan on October 13th, 2006 10:38 am

    I’d rather hear Orel than any other of the in-game “analysts”

    Al Leiter. In fact, a Bob Costas/Al Leiter tandem would be great.

    Or, we could just get back the old Expos broadcast crew of Dan Schulman and Ken Singleton. That was a wonderful pairing.

14. Mat on October 13th, 2006 10:57 am

    I’d rather hear Orel than any other of the in-game “analysts”

    I’d forgotten about his work in the Cards/Padres series. He was solid and probably the best color commentator I’ve heard these playoffs.

    I forget whether or not I liked Leiter much when he was in the booth for a bit. I do remember that he didn’t make me want to turn the sound off, so that’s better than most of the choices out there.

15. Mr. Egaas on October 13th, 2006 11:13 am

    I dunno what trash heap they pulled Luis Gonzalez out of to do such a big series with no prior experience.

16. Mat on October 13th, 2006 11:30 am

    I dunno what trash heap they pulled Luis Gonzalez out of to do such a big series with no prior experience.

    I think they call that particular trash heap the Arizona Diamondbacks.

17. DKJ on October 13th, 2006 12:27 pm

    I personally cut Gonzo some slack. I don’t see him so much as a color commentator, but as a recent participant in the game. In fact, his obvious deficiencies are refreshing – broadcast acumen/slickness, wit/egotism – I am offering two sides of a couple of coins so you catch my drift.

    It’s pretty neat to hear from a guy who has actually faced either the crafty Glavine or the strangely resurgent Jeff Weaver. It’s like one of the programs on the [Learn Nothing From] History Channel when they look into an “engineering marvel.” They will ask an engineer – and you guys are out there, you know what that means in terms of pozazz – but who can give you the best, most relevant information? Leave the sex appeal and god-voice, and maybe even the stat-smarts to the broadcasters.

18. msb on October 13th, 2006 2:32 pm

    #65– and FWIW, Gonzo has prior experience– this is the 4th year he’s done post-season baseball for ESPN …

19. missbaseball9 on October 14th, 2006 12:08 pm

    That’s why Fox calls one of its other tributaries FSN-short for Fox Sucks Network. As soon as I figure out which team has the best former Mariners on it I’ll forecast who will win the Series. And what is this about no wild card team (even with the best record) having home field advantage until the Series? That stinks, but then this whole whoever wins the All Star game gets WS homefield advantage stinks too, but that figures since it was Selig who came up with it. And now he has come up with this pea-brained idea about making it harder on the wild card teams throughout the playoffs by giving them fewer (!) home games–who elected him anyway?

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