By Phil Rosenthal
Chicago Tribune
Suffice it to say, Fox analyst John Smoltz sometimes sees baseball games differently than other people.
“You could see how close that came to Hembree getting hit,” Smoltz said over a replay showing a ball off the bat of the Dodgers’ Manny Machado whiz past the mound in the fifth inning of Tuesday’s World Series opener.
Well, upon further review, maybe not that close.
Machado’s ground out in the fifth, driving in the tying run, actually missed Red Sox pitcher Heath Hembree by, oh, a few hundred feet, seeing as how Hembree was in the bullpen.
Matt Barnes, the reliever brought in after Boston starter Chris Sale walked leadoff batter Brian Dozier, was the pitcher who was nearly hit.
For some reason, Smoltz misidentified Barnes as Hembree not once but twice in the inning —and if anyone in the Fox crew corrected him, it wasn’t on the air or even acknowledged for viewers.
The big knock on Smoltz this season and postseason has been that he has been a bit of a grump, harrumphing over the way the game is played in 2018 as opposed to back in the day.
“Back in the day,” in Smoltz’s case, being only a few years ago.
Smoltz has a keen eye, a wealth of insight and has been a strong contributor to Fox’s baseball coverage in recent years.
But the Hall of Fame pitcher’s incessant questioning of the game’s recent tolerance for striking out in pursuit of home runs and the amount of defensive shifting, while not an altogether illegitimate perspective, gets to wear on even baseball fanatics on a weekly basis let alone five nights a week in the playoffs.
But even if one doesn’t mind Smoltz’s “Eeyore” approach, it’s expected that at least an announcer should know who’s in the game he’s calling.
Granted, Barnes and Hembree are both 6-foot-4, 210-pound right-handers in their late 20s. But if uniform No. 32 looks like uniform No. 37, it might be time to visit an eye doctor.
At least that’s what announcers would have done back in the day.
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It would have been a lot easier had the Astros beaten the Red Sox in the American League Championship Series.
Fox play-by-play man for all seasons Joe Buck could have called Thursday’s Dolphins-Texans game for Fox without changing hotels.
As is, Buck is set to fly from Boston to Houston after Wednesday’s World Series Game 2, call the NFL prime-time telecast there, then jet to Los Angeles for Friday’s Game 3 Red Sox-Dodgers matchup.
At least he has a valid excuse if he misidentifies Red Sox pitchers.
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Buck tried to get a laugh after a shot looking down on Boston’s Prudential Center with “GO SOX” lit up in the windows, ad libbing a scenario in which he was some sort of office manager barking out instructions.
“Kevin don’t forget to turn on your lights before you go home. You’re part of the ‘Go Sox,’ ” he said at the start of the second inning. “Karen, you do it too.”
The truly amusing part of the shot of the building with the insurance company’s name on it, however, was read seconds earlier off a note card.
“Aerial coverage,” Buck said, “is brought to you by State Farm.”
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The nearly four-hour World Series opener drew an average national overnight rating of 10.0.
That’s down nominally from last season’s Astros-Dodgers Game 1, which score a 10.2, yet a significant drop from the Indians-Cubs opener in 2016, which drew a 12.6 in the metered markets.
The Royals-Mets, who began their 2015 series with a 14-inning marathon, averaged 10.5 in the overnight ratings, but the Dodgers and Red Sox drew better than any Game 1 between 2011 and ‘14.
