Commenting on the commentators: Diane Pucin’s live commentary on how TBS is handling the Dodgers-Phillies Game 1 telecast

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If it’s any consolation

Word is the season premiere of 30 Rock over on NBC at 9:30 is quite entertaining. Laughter is the answer for Dodgers fans, right?

Buck having a great night

On the massive Manny Ramirez home run, Buck Martinez pointed out that Phillies pitcher Cole Hamels threw Ramirez a ‘little changeup’ and later noted that Ramirez ‘had to be looking for that pitch to hit it so well, which wasn’t in a bad spot.’ Okay, so Buck wasn’t totally grammatically correct but we got the point. Hamels made a pretty good pitch. It didn’t matter.

Strike four not ball four

If you believe in the TBS illustrative graphic called PitchTrax that digitally shows whether pitched balls are strikes or balls, then, as Buck Martinez said in the top of the fourth, Philly batter Ryan Howard just struck out twice. Except he walked. On what was called ball four, Howard apparently checked his swing though the replay showed otherwise plus PitchTrax said the Clayton Kershaw pitch was actually a strike. That’s two strikes on one pitch. Except they weren’t.

Torre on TV

Joe Torre just compared James Loney’s personality and baseball demeanor to one of Torre’s old Yankee favorite’s, Bernie Williams. That’s a field interview that just added a bit of depth to the telecast. A touch of the personal.

Well-used instructional video, commentary included

After Manny Ramirez popped out in the bottom of the third, TBS was ready with a slow-motion dissection of Manny’s swing that was accompanied by good insights from Buck Martinez and Ron Darling. Martinez said that Manny is still trying to ‘hit the fastball with his body. He’s not using his hands to get the barrel to the baseball,’ and Darling noted that Manny’s front hand was ‘spinning out.’ And you could see all this happening.

Nice nugget

Analyst Buck Martinez made good point about how since the Phillies hadn’t played the Dodgers since Clayton Kershaw had really grown up as a pitcher, that the Philadelphia hitters haven’t experienced the rapidly-improving Kershaw sliders and changeups.

Ironic it’s not

Chip Caray said that it was ‘ironic’ that Dodger slugger Manny Ramirez has been playing ‘catch up’ ever since his 50-game suspension and that Phillies pitcher Cole Hamels has been playing ‘catch up’ since the start of the season (injury issues). How is that irony?

Ah, the replay after all

Liked how analyst Ron Darling noted Shane Victorino appeared to purposely run out of the base path and into the Dodgers’ James Loney. Darling said Victorino should have been called out.

Pesky commercials

They make you wait to see the inning-ending replays. Should be fun to see how Shane Victorino fell down and still almost didn’t get picked off first just now. These Avis ‘Rental Health Day’ commercials are well done and almost always bring a chuckle though. Never mind. No replay of the pick off play.

Tough critics out there

Chip Caray was the TBS play-by-play man on the Yankees-Twins in the first round of the playoffs and at least one listener, Richard Sandomir of the New York Times, was not impressed. Do you need a scorecard to keep track of Caray’s errors? He welcomed us to this series by quoting Yogi Berra’s line of it being deja vu all over again. You know, Phillies and Dodgers again. Kind of a cliche. And he just came back from a commercial with the overused ‘What a difference a day makes.’ Because, you know, it rained yesterday. And not today.

The Boomer

That would be David Wells and he’s having a lot of fun on the TBS pre-game and post-game shows. Wells spoke about doing the show, what he expects from the rest of the playoffs and, oh, yeah, about baseball and replay.

‘It’s a blast,’ Wells says of working alongside host Ernie Johnson and two other former major leaguers, Cal Ripken and Dennis Eckersley. ‘I don’t always want to be the geek that knows every stat,’ Wells said. ‘I want to add some fun into it plus some perspective of what the game is about. I played 21 years and I could have always cared less about stats.’

Since someone asked, no, Wells did not have to go shopping to buy some ties for the show. Since someone else asked, he said he was a West Coast guy (from San Diego) but he would love to see a Yankees-Dodgers World Series. ‘But I love the Angels,’ he says.

He would also very much like to see baseball use some sort of replay system after watching several umpiring miscues in the first round of the playoffs. He called the umpiring so far, ‘Horrific.’

‘At least I think they should use replay in the playoffs,’ Wells said, ‘especially when it could determine the outcome of the game. You need to go to replay.’

Wells also said that, after being in San Diego during a messy divorce situation that ended up causing the sale of the Padres, he would be both surprised and disappointed if any Dodger players let the personal issues of Frank and Jamie McCourt’s unraveling marriage affect their play in this series against Philadelphia.

‘I think they’re saying, ‘Let us go out and play and try to win a championship.’ It would be very disappointing if a team is affected by all that other stuff. That’s why (McCourt) paid them this year. So just go out and play.’

And with that, it’s time to go out and play.

You can follow Diane Pucin’s live commentary on how TBS is handling the Dodgers-Phillies Game 1 telecast here later. The game is scheduled for 5 p.m.

You can follow Mike Penner’s live play-by-play here. And the in-game box score here.

-- Diane Pucin