West Coast Chopper
According to our pal Todd Zolecki of Phillies.com, Chan Ho Park will be aboard the Phillies flight to Los Angeles which is scheduled to leave tonight around 7 p.m. local time.
Park has been laid up with a hamstring injury since September 16 and would add another important component to a brittle bullpen. Scott Eyre did pitch well on Monday, even though he has a bum ankle. Brett Myers was heard from just once in the NLDS, which shows Charlie Manuel is unsure of that hip. Antonio Bastardo threw just four pitches in the series.
Park is not yet a lock to join the team for the NLCS, however, they need all the able bodies they can get out there. Chopper also knows this Dodger team well, having been with them for their run to the playoffs last season.
Announcing for Dummies
Earlier in the series I posted a rant about the time slot in which the Phillies had been placed. Afternoon games, followed by endless overnight marathons made it difficult for the Phaithful to stave off insomnia into Monday.
Today, I’m here to rant about the despicable job the TBS announcers did in this series. It was comical how these gents would consider themselves bipartisan as their voice discrepancies proved otherwise. For innings upon innings, Brian Anderson and Joe Simpson waxed poetic about how wonderful the Colorado Rockies were, and so on and so forth.
Anderson’s ass slapping of the Rockies hit a fever pitch in the bottom of the eighth inning when Yorvit Torrealba busted the game open with a two-run double. It gave Colorado a 4-2 lead, and Anderson and Simpson an aneurism. Anderson boasted about Torrealba’s penchant for timely hits in the postseason, basically anointing him Reggie Jackson on the spot.
Then in the ninth, Ryan Howard’s smash double off the right field wall elicited barely an arousal from the commentators. For those of you who bashed Tom McCarthy and Chris Wheeler for the duration of the season, you witnessed the alternative, and it wasn’t pretty.
For the NLCS, TBS has tabbed Chip Caray, Ron Darling, and Buck Martinez as the crew.
Ratings Through the Roof
Game 4 between the Phillies and Rockies brought people in front of the TV in ridiculous amounts. The Phillies scored a 26.0 rating in Philadelphia, while the Rockies drew an impressive 18.3 in the Denver market.
Nationwide, TBS garnered a 4.0 rating on the Phils/Rockies finale, meaning that roughly 6.3 million people watched around the country. Compare that to the Yankees/Twins Game 2, which brought TBS 6.5 million viewers, or a 4.1 rating.
The difference was negligible between the two games. TBS believes that, monetarily, they will make a larger profit by placing the Yankees in prime time. However, the numbers prove the Phillies can hold their own on a national stage. Major League Baseball still isn’t listening as they have scheduled the Phils for a 4:30 start time on Friday, so that the Yanks can get nice and cozy in prime time.
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