ESPN Broadcast last night - Question: what was broadcasters' take on NL Central & wild card races?

[brwrsfan]

I'm sure with many out of state Brewer fans on the board that a few of you watched the game on ESPN last night. I'm just curious what the ESPN announcers take was on the NL Central/Wildcard race. I'm sure they were all over the Cubs and Cards, especially they're love for Tony LaRussa, but did they say anything positive about the Brewers? Make any predictions?

 

I always like getting the national take on the Brewers, I was disappointed it was blacked out here last night.

 

 

(edit: clearer thread title --1992)

[LS Brewer]

I thought they were very positive about the Brewers including the recent trades. One pretty cool thing they tried to do was get Mark Shapiro and Doug Melvin on the Broadcast at the same time to talk about the Sabathia - LaPorta trade. They had some technical problems at first with Shapiro's phone connection but they had Doug in the booth. Anyway, they went through how the trade went down which I thought was interesting. On the whole, the ESPN announcers were not overly distracting in any way (even Steve Phillips).

[sheethead]

The question was posed sometime during the broadcast as to whether the Brewers can make the playoffs this year. I'm not positive if it was Phillips that answered the question, but the answer was yes. While that really isn't too far of a stretch, there didn't seem to be any waffling on the answer.

[JohnBriggs12]

When pressed after praising both teams, both Phillips and Hershiser said they thought the Brewers were more likely to earn a playoff berth than the Cardinals. The feeling was that if the Brewers added an impact reliever, there would be no stopping them.

[lukevan]

Both Phillips and Herschiser seemed to think the Brewers would make the playoffs this year. Schulman sounded a little down-trodden after the last out, like he'd been rooting St. Louis but overall they had nice things to say.

After Rickie's first AB, Phillips said that Weeks needs to learn more patience at the plate as a leadoff hitter, even though IMO Weeks is TOO patient at times and certainly takes more than his share of walks.

[JJHardy7]

I wish the anti-ESPN folks could've watched it. The booth seemed pretty informed and positive about the team. They gave the Brewers and their fans a lot of credit for the high attendance numbers this year.

 

ESPN loves Braun. They predicted he'll be the fastest player to hit 300 home runs...in MLB history.

[homer]

Here's Orel Hersheiser's take from ESPN.com

 

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/notebook?page=bbtn

 

 

 

After Rickie's first AB, Phillips said that Weeks needs to learn more patience at the plate as a leadoff hitter, even though IMO Weeks is TOO patient at times and certainly takes more than his share of walks.

Yeah, I heard that too. Weeks is actually 12th in the NL in pitches seen per plate appearance.

[craigharmann]

Steve Phillips actually suggested over the year that Torres could have a blown save and then a save...um....yeah, sure.

[bucks2281]

Just an FYI, ESPN has chosen the Cubs @ Brewers game for Wednesday Night Baseball on July 30.

[pebadger]

Is Wednesday Night Baseball a 'protected' national TV package game in that it is broadcast to all markets? Or will it be blacked out in local markets and available everywhere else, with local markets getting the local RSN coverage? I can't remember the last time the Brewers were on in the Wednesday night slot.

 

Wednesday is scheduled to be a Parra start, correct?

[TSack27]

FYI - Some more positive pub should be coming the Brewers' way from ESPN, as they just mentioned Billy Hall will be a guest on tonight's 11pm CT Baseball Tonight.