Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees fans will hear friendly TV voices call their team’s Wild-Card matchup this week. In the playoffs, that’s not always the case.
Year after year, MLB followers grumble about losing the local announcing booths they’ve spent their summers with in favor of national voices brought in for postseason action. Team broadcasters hurt too.
“It’s kind of like taking a transatlantic voyage on a ship, and then getting thrown overboard a mile from shore,” Mets play-by-play’er Gary Cohen told The Athletic in 2024.
This year, as NBC broadcasts its first MLB playoff games since 2000, at least a few color guys are getting a couple more days on board. Continuing its strategy from the regular season, NBC has combined one local analyst from each side with its own play-by-play voice for this week’s four Wild-Card series.
“The biggest complaint you hear during the postseason in baseball is, ‘I can’t hear my people, I can’t hear my guys call the game,’” NBC Sports executive producer Sam Flood said before the season. “We really want to honor that part of baseball.”
NESN’s Lou Merloni and YES Network’s Joe Girardi will join Jason Benetti for Red Sox-Yankees coverage. Longtime White Sox color commentator Steve Stone will pair up with his Houston counterpart, Geoff Blum, as Phillies analyst John Kruk and Braves commentator C.J. Nitkowski will team to call that intra-division series. Cubs color commentator Jim Deshaies pushed his previously scheduled hip surgery back two weeks, given the opportunity to call the team’s games against San Diego alongside Padres analyst Mark Grant.
“Fans know these people,” Benetti said of local analysts on Monday. “You spend so much time with these people in your houses that there’s a trust factor that develops.” For third-party observers, the dedicated analysts also can provide insight a national voice might miss.
NBC began building its roster of potential playoff analysts months ago, identifying close to 20 broadcasters who would be tapped if their teams played in the opening round.
There are risks, to be sure. Three-person announcer booths can take years to gel; Benetti and his fellow play-by-play callers will have just hours to get everyone on the same page. But Benetti, who calls Detroit Tigers games during the regular season, has embraced the unfamiliarity.
“The thing that’s most exciting is you never know where the conversation is going to go,” he said.
NBC is also maintaining its newly created “Inside the Pitch” analyst position for each series, with Anthony Rizzo assigned to keep a close eye on the field and dugout for the Red Sox-Yankees series while Caroline Pineda fills the reporter position.
NBC will carry Braves-Phillies and Red Sox-Yankees games on broadcast TV at 2 p.m. ET and 8 p.m. ET Tuesday and Wednesday, while White Sox-Astros (5 p.m. ET) and Cubs-Padres (10 p.m. ET) will air across Peacock and NBC Sports Network both days. Thursday’s schedule of Game 3’s depends on who’s still alive at that point.
Unlike their TV colleagues, radio broadcasters typically keep calling their local teams’ games through the postseason.
NBC is reportedly paying close to $200 million annually in a three-year deal for Sunday Night Baseball and Wild-Card play.
Of course, there’s still no recreating the chemistry or comfort of a club’s dedicated TV announcing booth, melded into a family over the course of 162 games, summer after summer. For months, baseball operates largely as a regional affair. Postseason play offers something else entirely.
But, for a diehard fan, a few words from a familiar voice as October dawns could sound a lot like home.
