Last night’s back-and-forth thriller ended with an 8-7 Rays win. That knotted the World Series at two games apiece, setting the stage for a Tyler Glasnow – Clayton Kershaw showdown in tonight’s crucial Game 5.
Tampa Bay’s win also guaranteed the series will go at least six games. Unsurprisingly, Blake Snell is set to take the ball for the Rays in the sixth contest on Tuesday night (via Juan Toribio of MLB.com). That’ll give the southpaw five days rest since his most recent start in Game 2, when he tossed 4.2 innings of two-run ball, striking out nine while allowing a pair of hits and four walks.
Snell was warming in the bullpen in the late innings last night, but manager Kevin Cash decided against bringing him into the game. How the Dodgers will deploy their pitching staff in Game 6 remains to be seen, but it’s easy to envision a potential Game 7 matchup between Charlie Morton and Walker Buehler.
That’s all great and stuff, but can we please PLEASE replace Joe Buck? Nearly anybody else would be an upgrade. Get one of those KBO announcers next to Smoltz.
Chris Berman? Ravech then ESPN can have a set their same with Fox if Burkhart was calling game.
Chris Berman would be worse.
I’d rather hear Fran Drescher than Joe Buck.
Oh man that’s a tough one
Phlegm for days…gross!
I’m so curious, why does everyone hate Buck? I have no opinion either way really, he just catches so much flak on the internet. Is it his voice? Did McCarver tarnish his whole image/rep?
@kevincwilson I can’t speak for everyone but…
1. My biggest issue is he’s biased, especially with baseball. He tries not to be but doesn’t do a good job hiding it. To me that’s a serious problem if you’re doing a national game. You can’t help but secretly root and it affects your broadcast. I can hear it in his inflection, his tone, his focus, his overall coverage. For instance, I can clearly tell he favors the Dodgers over the Rays in the World Series. He never should have been doing any national games that the St. Louis Cardinals are in.
2. His color commentary is weak. He’s not particularly funny or interesting or insightful. His stories are bland. He can come across as condescending. He doesn’t have a whole lot of inside scoop or personal knowledge to fall back on. Did you hear his bit about Dustin Mays? prosportsextra.com/according-to-joe-buck-dodgers-p…
3. He’s overexposed. There are plenty of broadcasters out there but Joe Buck seems to be the go-to guy. I don’t need to hear the same voice during every major game I watch.
4. He doesn’t know when to talk and when to just shut up and let the moment happen. He’s getting better with this one.
I actually don’t hate the man himself – he seems like a decent guy. I just don’t like him broadcasting MLB games. I don’t think he’s that bad with football. I’d rather hear him than Chris Collinsworth, though that’s not saying much.
He’s a more vein, louder, higher paid, less interested Chip Carey. Broadcasters desperately trying to find career identify in their father’s (and in Chip’s case, grandfather’s) shadows. Seriously though, bleached hair, Joe?
Ah yes the “Joe Buck is biased” conspiracy. He sounded excited for both teams yesterday.
To be fair, Buck himself referred to his own “East Coast bias” during a game recently.
His color commentary is weak? Uh, he’s not the color commentator – he’s the play by play guy.
That’s like saying Tom Brady sucks because he doesn’t kick enough field goals.
For years, I have been saying that Tom Brady doesn’t kick enough anything!
Are you joking when you refer to Joe Buck’s bias as conspiracy?? It is blatantly obvious, I thought he was going to rub one out on air during a Yankees game once. If he is not biased it is even worse, because it comes across as though he is so strongly.
Id take a retired player with vast personal experience in the game over him any day.
Here’s my issue with Buck. when I say dodger fans below, I mean myself and people I’ve spoken to who agree with me (used to live-comment games on TBLA back in the day, also led to meet ups at games). Anyways
Dodger fans have had an issue with Buck since the Cardinals+Philly matchups from 13-14 era. From the Matt stairs HR, to how he would call the Kershaw blowups vs STL+later Houston… it may not be fair, but dodger fans remember Buck seemingly jumping for joy for the big hit against LA, and in the meantime essentially celebrating the Dodgers continued struggles. The dodgers have had some massive heart breaks, and Buck seems to be the one calling it every time.
Personally, I have had the game on semi-mute most of the series, I dislike both Smoltz+Bucks calling of a game. Again, to me and others I’ve talked with, it’s not about this year. It’s about his past calls
Buck admitted he has shown an East coast bias before earlier this year, I assume they are teams he gets to watch most nights and it makes sense. Again maybe it’s not fair, but the dislike of buck has been building for many years
He’s fine. Most fans are too, but there is a vocal element who hate him, which is bizarre. He’s mostly a bland announcer to me.
Just posted about this in another thread.
Now, I don’t listen to commentary (music instead) when I watch sports. It was a concession to a former girlfriend. Turns out I prefer it.
Huh.
So I don’t really know what kind of stuff he says.
But.
I hear all this contradictory stuff, man!
To wit:
“Joe Buck hates the Cardinals because he’s from St Louis”, “Joe Buck hates the Cubs because he’s from St Louis”, “Joe Buck hates small market teams”, “Joe Buck hates big market teams”, “Joe Buck loves Altuve”, “Joe Buck loves Judge”…for real. I could go on.
Just by reading what fans think of him (hint; they *all* think he’s biased against their team) & not listening to him at all makes me think he’s probably actually quite *unbiased* lol.
Ducky Buckin’ Fent
I have not seen what you are saying. I have not seen fans complain that he both is and isn’t biased towards St. Louis. He is biased for St. Louis. Most people know that. I have not seen people claim he is biased toward both small markets AND big markets. I haven’t seen that. I don’t know about Altuve or Judge but I can understand someone liking both. I know someone who likes both. But I haven’t seen a fan comment on that here during this postseason.
And I have read EVERY story and the vast majority of comments (yes, I keep going back to comment boards until people stop adding comments) throughout the playoffs, when fans have talked about Joe Buck. So I really don’t think I missed anything.
As fans are saying in this thread (and others), he IS biased. And annoying. AND boring.
So I think you are just basically saying without saying it is that you like Joe Buck, in a roundabout way.
You’ve read every comment on the internet and haven’t seen *both* Dodgers *and* Rays fans complaining he’s biased?
Umm…ok?
Again; I don’t listen to him. Haven’t listened to commentary in…man, Mo, a really long time. Roundabout – or not – I really have no opinion of him as an announcer. Except that the way so many fan bases complain about him for wildly disparate reasons.
Joe Buck is biased and boring. He also only has the job because his Dad. He has no other qualification. If his last name was not Buck he would not even have a regular season job.
He does not know that much about baseball compared to interesting experienced announcers not to mention his less then patriotic comments last week when he was announcing football and his pathetic response to that.
Yeah I think it is in part is voice. He also comes across as very condescending. He doesn’t call a single baseball game the entire season and then waltzes in to call the biggest games of the year and acts as if he is all of a sudden a baseball expert. If you listen closely you will hear him make a few bad mistakes a game (In game one he called Wade Miley “Bruce Miley”).. He also sounds as if he’s reading off wikipedia when he talks about players, “And here’s Markus Lynn Betts, commonly known as Mookie, standing five foot nine, obviously came up with the Red Sox before he was acquired for a couple of prospects earlier this year along with David Price. We all know what happened to David Price however.” His entire announcing style if very repetitive “Back at the track/wall” and he really adds nothing new to the broadcast. This is less about Buck than it is Smoltz, but since Buck is really out of his league in the whole baseball environment, he’s left lobbing softball questions to Smoltz who pretty much uses it as an excuse to talk about himself even when it doesn’t pertain to the game at the time.
If it weren’t for Buck I’d have no idea how old Soto was in the 2019 World Series. I kept forgetting, so glad I was reminded every 20 minutes.
@jjd
Hilarious and so true!
Buck doesnt have the emotion necessary to call these games. Compare his call to Vasgersian’s. This was quite possibly the wildest ending to a world series game in history and his emotion didnt really match the moment. It was the same thing for example with Rajai Davis’ 3 run bomb vs the cubs. These calls are supposed to be eternal to match the timeless nature of the plays in question.
My biggest gripe with him is that he’s not a baseball-exclusive guy. To me, he the embodiment of the problem with radio sports talk. They’re all moderately knowledgeable people that speak to every sport.
He is a privileged punk who is an average-at-best announcer who has a bad case of short mans complex coupled with ego. When I hear his voice, I turn it off or mute it an listen to radio feed.
smoltz is 100000X WORSE! dude played HOF level baseball but has a baseball IQ of 10. tv is on mute
Smoltz is really annoying. He’ll look for any excuse to talk about himself. Too often he talks about stuff that has nothing to do with the game that’s being played.
They should have gotten Francoeur instead.
Just mute the sound. I rarely if ever listen to the announcers anyway. Most of them are annoying homers.
Thank you!
Yea please get rid of Joe Buck!
I like Joe buck
I would like to see Vin Scully, best sports broadcaster in our generation, call the last out, how improbable would that be !!!!!
This. Would. Be. Amazing.
I disagree. I enjoy him. He has a good announcers voice
Watch the international broadcast, it’s Matt Vasgersian and Buck Martinez.
I’m still so confused why everyone hates joe buck…. this is an honest question like their are people who are anti joe buck…. did I miss something because personally I love his voice for play by play.. am I the only one?
I personally find him dull and boring, doesn’t necessarily make him objectively bad or anything, just like some may not like Gus Johnson cause he gets too excited for them
Smoltz is awful. Knows the game obv, but he has no personality. Ron Darling is the best, well Darling and Steve Stone. I imagine if Stone did a game w Buck, Buck would learn more in nine innings than his entire career previously. Anderson who did the alcs is even worse than Buck.
Get a baseball guy in there, pair him w Darling. It is not rocket science.
i had figured they’d have to win Morton’s starts to win the series, but lad night was a huge break and speaks volumes to how TB can really hang with LA.
The Arozarena walk in the 9th hinged on a clear, unequivocal strike being called a ball. The seventh (last) pitch of the AB called a ball. The ball was well within the strike zone. Called correctly, that would have been the third out of the inning and game over, Dodgers win. Instead Arozarena walks and Brett Phillips comes up and hits a two-run single. Tampa Bay wins.
I don’t have a dog in this fight. I have a slight interest in seeing TB win because their fans have never seen it and maybe it creates an uptick in TB interest in their team. But if the Dodgers win that’s not a bad thing either since their fans haven’t seen a WS victory since the 80’s. Even with my slight bias for TB I want the games called correctly. It should be Dodgers 3-1. The robo-umps can’t come too soon. This game shows why. It happens every week of baseball, multiple times. What if TB were to actually win the WS after this? In my eyes, it would be illegitimate, based purely on a bad call. The robo-umps can’t come to soon.
Arozarena clearly walked. I dont know what youre talking about. The ump also heavily benefitted the dodgers last night:
twitter.com/UmpScorecards/status/13203839705597542…
And yet Muncy was clearly pulled off second by a guy who wrapped his arms around him and the ump still called him out. I guess you decided to ignore that ridiculously cheap move and focus on one strike call.
yandymania
Go to MLB.com. In the upper left-hand of the page, change the score date to 10/24. Select the box score for last night’s game. Now select “Plays.” On the left you will see scoring plays. On the right you will see play by play. Select the 9th inning from the play by play. Scroll down to Arozarena. Click on the down arrow where it says Walk. Look to the far right where it has a strike zone. Click on the Strike Zone. There are the pitch locations for all seven pitches. Number seven is green, which means it was called a ball. As you will see, it is well within the strike zone. I rest my case.
yandymania
Fair enough. I was going by pitch tracker on MLB.com, which has the pitch solidly within the strike zone. I demonstrated this is the above post. As I can see on the video, however, it bounces in… Not sure how that happened. I thought pitch tracker was reliable.
I couldn’t sleep last night as a Dodger fan but I think we are still in decent shape to win the series.
As long as the Dodgers realize that Baez is awful in close games. They should have realized that years ago. Quite frankly, I like Roberts overall but he has not been good managing the bullpen.
that means jerry meals behind the plate for game 6 right?
He’s be the last guy in the rotation, with the crew chief in game 7
that’s good. he’s a good guy i’m sure, but man he needs to be as far away from home plate as possible.
It really doesn’t matter who the Rays start. Roberts will find a way to screw things up. Last night he removed Urias in the Fifth. He had given up four hits (two were home runs but so what). Dodgers were still ahead. Brings in Treinen who I think has pitched in almost every game. Bad result there. Kolarek gets two out but two runners on so in comes the Dodger killer Pedro Baez. Immediately gives up a three run homer. Later,8th inning, Graterol comes in and gets an out retiring the side. One batter! One! Guy throws 100 mph. But hey, can’t have that. Let’s bring in Kenley who pitched for no real reason the night before and see what he can do. No reason. Graterol would have been fine but Roberts has to do his “managing stuff” you know.
Jansen very quickly puts Rays everywhere and the rest, as they say is history.
Every year we go through this with Roberts. He should not be allowed to even know the names of the pitching staff.
Thread winning comment. Davey intends to have another bullpen game for game 6, basically gifting the Rays three games in the series including last night.
The main sin was removing Urias, who had only thrown 80 pitches, takes him out w two outs in the fifth and NOBODY ON BASE.
The man is so dense he simply can t learn from prior WS disasters, and will waddle out to get pitchers who are rolling along and replace w an inferior reliever. Is he trying to help the other team? Seems plausible from watching him manage in WS
Bad calls are part of every game. I have seen strikes called balls which led to LAD home runs this series, the thing about baseball is it all evens out.
That said, I disagree regarding your claims. I didn’t think there was a missed call on that AB.
Fact is, Arozarena walked on a bad call. The seventh and last pitch was a clear strike. The entire ball was inside the strike zone. He would have struck out but instead he walked. The strikeout would have been the end of the game, Dodgers win. Instead Arozarena walks and Brett Phillips comes up. Gets an undeserved chance to hit a two-run scoring single. Instead TB wins. Dodgers should be up 3-1. Instead it’s 2-2. That’s huge!
Fact is, despite his miscues, Roberts (and the Dodgers) should have won. And I don’t have a dog in this fight. If anything I have slight desire to see TB win. I just want the games called right, for cripes sake. This is the WS! Get the calls right. Travesty. Bring on the robo-umps!
You mean the pitch that bounced a foot in front of home plate?
I only looked at pitch tracker. It showed a pitch INSIDE the strike zone, fully inside the strike zone, being called a ball. Check for yourself. Balls in the dirt are shown as balls in the dirt by pitch tracker. That ball wasn’t in the dirt.
Why dont you try watching the actual game big guy. It was clearly a ball. Here’s a link for you:
youtube.com/watch?v=FbS65SKh3Hw
Timestamp at 11:30. Look at the bounced ball that was so obviously a strike.
I don’t need to check pitch tracker when I watched the game and saw the pitch live and have watched it several more times since. I even watched it again after you posted saying something about a clear strike when I couldn’t figure out for the life of me what you were talking about.
In the future, maybe think twice before making (several) posts boldly claiming something you didn’t actually see in real time, especially if you insist on saying “Fact is…” over and over.
Jansen literally bounced the ball for ball four.
yandymania
Fair enough. I was going by pitch tracker on MLB.com, which has the pitch solidly within the strike zone. As I can see on the video, however, it bounces in… Not sure how that happened. I thought pitch tracker was reliable.
No problem.
I screwed up my reply ti Mo, came above his post.
But dude, the last pitch went 59 feet–it is 60 to the plate. You are so off lol. Can i have what you are smoking plz?
fox471
sounds a lot like a manager i know, rocco
Keep buck and replace that dinosaur Smoltz. His lack of understanding of analytics is sad for him. He is as out of touch as Vin Scilly was, but at least Scully had the excuse of being from a different era.
Smoltz is from a different era. He retired 11 years ago.
There are so many good baseball announcers out there. Why they stick with these two I’ll never know. I can’t be the only one watching with the sound off.
How about some old sound bites from Harry Carey? That would be an improvement
Caray. Sorry
Ex ball players rarely make great announcers. Smoltz is a jock, I don’t think he really has the aptitude for it.
I think Ron Darling is excellent.
I think Geoff Blum is excellent.
Fox you hit it right on. Roberts continues to over manage and Kenley has lost so much velocity screw his ego and don’t let him pitch. Ride out grateful until he can’t get people out. And Baez? He has been doing this in clutch situations for 4 years.
Meh I’m okay with the Dodgers losing the series. There’s always the next 5 years
Agree 1000%. Roberts was outmanaged badly last night. Cash went strictly by the numbers and took all emotion out of his decisions and it showed in the results.
Btw, I watched the game on BT Sport out of the UK. Not sure who the play-by-play guy was but he was pretty good. His colour guy was Buck Martinez, who I don’t mind either as he’s pretty insightful.
I actually feel as if both managers made quite a few mistakes last night. Roberts had/has had very poor management of pitchers but Cash butchered his entire bullpen in the game. He brought in Pete Fairbanks early in the game for a couple outs when he clearly needed him at the end of the game. This then put a much higher reliance on every other reliever to pick up the slack and get more outs than they were comfortable. He also emptied his bench which left him with Brett Phillips (who isn’t even batting above 200) with the game on the line. Obviously it worked out but imagine if it hadn’t. They’d be in a 3-1 hole with a taxed bullpen tonight.
It should have been 3-1 Dodgers win because Arozarena walked on a clear third out strikeout in the 9th. The entire ball was well within the strike zone. Should have been third strike but instead it was called ball four. Check pitch tracker. Phillips never should have come up. Dodgers should have won.
But how do you feel about robo umps?
Can’t come too soon. Let’s get balls and strikes called right. I want to know that strikeouts are strikeouts and walks are walks. I want to know that a batter is fairly in a hitter’s or pitcher’s count. I want to know that AB’s are accurately determined. I want to know that an inning is resolved fairly, that runs that are scored or not scored do so accurately. I want to know that the score of a game is accurate. I want to know that teams that win win fairly. I want to know that teams that make the postseason make it there fairly. Robo-umps can help us get closer to all that.
Makes tonight’s game so critical. Rays definitely have an advantage in game 6.
Dodgers win tonight and we likely go 7 they lose and it might be all over but the crying.
Bob Costas should be doing the World Series every year.
Angel fans trying to pretend they can celebrate dodger fan suffering hahahahaha
The Dodgers looked like the Braves on that last play.
Bring back Curt Schilling
Curt should be in the HOF.
I would rather have a game commentated by Moaning Myrtle from Harry Potter than Joe Buck
Steve Stone should be doing national broadcasts
I have no idea how Smoltz keeps his job. I get that a Buck Martinez or Bucky Showalter might be a bit too detailed on their analysis for the “new” fan, but Smoltz just dribbles on and on about absolutely nothing. At least someone like Eckersely is entertaining; Smoltz is boring even without the monotone.
Dodgers never make it easy on themselves, always playing down to their competition. Don’t get me wrong, in the postseason, their opposition are good to great teams but they’re much better in every way and still struggling to beat teams comfortably.
Maybe those teams are just better than you give them credit for, or the Dodgers aren’t as good as you think.
He just said opposing teams are good to great.
He also said the Dodgers are much better in every way. Maybe they aren’t?
Maybe they are.
Yes, maybe they are. You’re really only as good as you play. They squeaked by the Braves. They’re tied with the Rays. Maybe this is who they are.
Maybe.
I watched the replay of the winning flubs this morning. It’s always the manager’s and the umpire’s and the announcer’s fault when guys can’t catch the baseball or run the bases without falling over. I would have thought there’d be some joy in finally getting a fun game to watch (sorry, past my bedtime) but nope, it’s just complaining. Whatever.
Evening whyhayzee…
Got to agree. That was a game for the ages. It was a lunacy. that neither manager had any control over whatsoever.
As far balls & strikes and robot umpires? Meh. Brett Phillips (no, I hadn’t heard of him either) – the bloop single hero of the hour – had two strikes called against him
which were questionable. . Would he have swung at a 3-0 pitch whereas he’s forced to swing 1-2.???
Anyway, you can take robot umpires and hide them next to Auntie Marjorie’s squirrel shooter. Here in the Luddite UK, we’ve had DRS in cricket, VAR in soccer, Hawkeye in tennis, underwater pervert cam in synchronised swimming and none of them work. Especially the water cam.
In real time an accidental collision in soccer is exactly that, in slo-mo it looks like premediated assault and battery.
Can’t wait for tonight’s game (a more reasonable midnight start thanks to winter time changes in the UK) and am grateful for all involved for getting this on, when it didn’t look likely in May/June….
Peter In London
I don’t care who are the play by play announcers, I don’t put the game to watch them. I put it to watch the game. Quit the whining.
If I could chose announcers, I prefer Buck Martinez and Tom Paciorek. Paciorek hasn’t been an announcer in awhile but, I thought he was an exceptional announcer and hoped the Tigers give him a shot.
brian anderson would be 10 times better then joe buck at commentator
Rays will win the world series.
Time for Buck 2 move on, get Lee Michaels or anyone who is a former player/manager
My biggest gripe with last nights game is that BS play at 2B
How the hell is it not only legal BUT NOT REVIEWABLE that a defender can literally bear hug a guy and pull him off the base coming off a double?? This team has 56 freakin 2 out runs and the umpires just let the Rays literally pull the inning away
Muncy clearly held foot well past his normal momentum. The fact the umpires gave zero Fs about getting the play right in the freaking World Series, but we use replay to dissect the smallest instance of if a guy came off the base for a millisecond Is asinine. Why TF did mlb spend millions on these cameras then not use them on the biggest stage. THATS the BS that pisses me off than the last play
Ron Gant says “what he said!”.
This thread went Buck Wild.
Good game tonight, though.
stop walking people!