The Major League Baseball playoffs are right around the corner and now that most of the teams are set heading into the final series of the season, the MLB has released dates for the matchups, including the Wild Card games on TBS for the first round.
According to MLB.com, the National League Wild Card game will be played on October 1 on TBS, while the American League game will be on October 2 on TBS as well before the Divisional Series, which will start on October 3 and 4 respectively for the NLDS and the ALDS. MLB.com reports that the first game of the World Series will be on October 23 and that the final games of the regular season will be on September 29.
According to Awful Announcing, the TBS broadcast will be changed up from last season, as the studio will have some new faces, as will the broadcast booth. The report says that Keith Olbermann will be the top studio man for the playoffs for TBS, while Tom Verducci will also be involved, which is great considering how smart of a baseball writer he is. On top of that, Pedro Martinez will also be on the team for the postseason.
The broadcasts for games received some criticism over the past couple years and now the company has shaken things up, putting Ernie Johnson, Cal Ripken and Ron Darling together for the NLCS and one of the division series, while Brian Anderson, John Smoltz, and Joe Simpson will be together, as will Don Orsillo, Dennis Eckersley, and Buck Martinez.
The other big changes for the crews includes a host of reporters working games, including avid Aldridge and Rachel Nichols, who has been very good since leaving ESPN. The wild card games last season were very entertaining for TBS and now they will get the chance to broadcast them again and this time the first round of the playoffs will not start with the lesser seeded team at home first, which was done last season to help with the addition of the wild card.
