If you’re skeptical about the existence of announcer jinxes, the eighth inning of Wednesday afternoon’s game between the Chicago Cubs and San Diego Padres might get you to reconsider.
Leading 3-1, the Padres called upon reliever Wandy Peralta to handle the eighth inning. The first hitter he faced was Chicago’s Pete Crow-Armstrong. After Crow-Armstrong fouled off the first offering from Peralta, a graphic displayed the reliever’s stats. Color analyst Mark Grant made a point of mentioning Peralta’s 0.00 ERA.
“Look at that ERA in 7 1/3,” Grant said.
You probably know where this is going.
Unfortunately for Peralta, those were his final moments having a perfect ERA on the young season. Crow-Armstrong turned on the next pitch he saw from Peralta, launching a home run into the right field seats.
If they just went over Peralta’s numbers when he first came into the game and mentioned that he had a clean ERA, this would be a stretch. After all, it was unlikely that Peralta was going to maintain a perfect ERA for the entire season. But Grant making a special point of his ERA, only to see Peralta cough up a home run seconds later?
That’s just a perfect announcer jinx.