The Toronto Blue Jays and Houston Astros game on Tuesday night featured a puzzling bottom of the eighth inning. Not just Dan Shulman and Buck Martinez called the game on Sportsnet, but everyone who watched that broadcast was particularly involved.
With two runners on base and one out in the bottom of the eighth inning, Houston’s Alex Bregman took the mound. José Altuve was at third base while Kyle Tucker was at first base. Alejandro Kirk, the catcher, caught Bregman’s popup behind the plate to record the second out. To replace pitcher Tim Mayza, Toronto captain John Schneider entered the game. Though it didn’t seem like anything unusual occurred, it wasn’t entirely accurate. However, it took some time to work things out.
When the broadcast returned from commercial, Sportsnet cameras were focused on Toronto pitching coach Pete Walker standing in the dugout, arguing with the umpires. Shulman noted, “Not sure exactly what it is, this started during the pitching change when Chad Green was on his way in from the bullpen. Not sure what this is.” Martinez added that he “didn’t have any clue” when Shulman realized that Tucker was standing on second base.
Shulman quickly guessed what happened. “Maybe Tucker took off and play was still live. I don’t know exactly — like, he walked and Bregman fouled out. But Kyle Tucker’s standing on second base right now. Maybe that has something to do with it. However he got there, he’s there right now.”
As it turned out, that’s exactly what happened. Tucker, realizing that the Blue Jays weren’t paying close attention to him, tagged up when Kirk caught Bregman’s popup and made it to second base without a throw. The Blue Jays were arguing that time had been called — but to no avail.
“I mean did he just take off after Kirk caught the ball? And just kind of snuck over to second. He got there somehow,” Shulman said.
“Yeah, that’s what I think happened,” Martinez responded. “The popup to Kirk and he must have tagged and advanced. But everybody was focused on Kirk. I don’t think — I don’t know. I honestly don’t know how he got there.”
After Green’s 1-2 pitch to Houston’s Yainer Díaz, the broadcast went to a replay of Bregman’s popup. A camera picked up Tucker tagging up and running safely into second base. For the Blue Jays and their fans, that was the good news. The bad news was that time timing of the replay was terrible. Because while Sportsnet was showing a replay of Tucker tagging up, Altuve made a critical baserunning mistake, straying too far off of third base. Kirk fired to third baseman Ernie Clement, who tagged Altuve out.
The broadcast returned from the replay of Tucker tagging up to show Altuve walking, without a helmet to his second base position. The next shot was of Kirk in the dugout. Meanwhile, the scorebug remained unchanged and more notably, the broadcast was silent for roughly 15 seconds before Shulman’s voice was heard again.
“And now as we were in the replay, the inning has come to an end,” Shulman said. He then narrated the play before the broadcast returned to commercial.
Something was off in the truck with the director. These were both weird plays, for sure, but both were picked up on the Houston broadcast much more quickly.
As for the announcers, these kind of things wouldn’t have been too far out of place in MLB’s pandemic era of 2020, when road announcers called games remotely. In the case of a remote broadcast, the announcers are at the complete mercy of what’s on their monitors. Live, that’s not the case. And Shulman and Martinez were shown several times during the broadcast with Minute Maid Park behind them. Field reporters Hazel Mae and Ben Nicholson-Smith were also both on location.
We’re not exactly sure what happened here. But as we learned on Opening Day, much like the players, the announcers can sometimes need a few weeks to shake some of the rust off.
