The Boston Red Sox beat the Los Angeles Dodgers, 4–2, in MLB on Fox’s Saturday Game of the Week.
But if you were watching the broadcast, you might’ve assumed the defending champs had walked it off in extras.
That was Garrett Crochet’s takeaway, anyway.
It’s not a new gripe. New York radio host Evan Roberts has lobbed similar complaints during national broadcasts, frustrated by what feels like a never-ending Dodgers infatuation. When the Mets hosted L.A. earlier this year in a series spread across Apple TV+, Fox, and ESPN, David Cone flat-out suggested the only reason Citi Field was full was because the Dodgers were in town. Fox didn’t go that far on Saturday, but it also didn’t do much to acknowledge the team that actually won the game.
Crochet, who started for Boston, notched his 12th win of the season. He went six innings, gave up two runs on eight hits, struck out 10, and walked two. Not his sharpest outing, but after a rocky first inning, he settled in and quieted a lineup that gets worshipped on national TV.
Shohei Ohtani crushed the third pitch of the game 414 feet to dead center. Two batters later, Teoscar Hernández turned a lazy sweeper into a souvenir over the Green Monster. Freddie Freeman sneaked an infield single, and Andy Pages followed with a hard-hit single of his own. Crochet got off to a rough start, but stopped the bleeding before things got out of hand.
But that was about it. Crochet locked in after that. He didn’t make some sweeping mechanical adjustment or talk about pitch sequencing. Just two bad pitches. It happens to the best of them.
“I’ve been watching them on repeat, too,” Crochet said. “Fox played them 30 times. You’d think the Dodgers won tonight. But no. No real adjustment.”
That dynamic isn’t new, but it hits differently when the guy who just won is the one pointing it out.
Joe Davis does his best to walk the line, but he’s also the voice of the Dodgers, and that’s always going to color the perception. It’s the same thing Joe Buck dealt with for years, calling St. Louis Cardinals games nationally. No matter how balanced you try to be, fans think you’re rooting for someone. It comes with the job.
But when the opposing starting pitcher is calling out your network for playing Dodgers highlights on a loop after a loss, that perception gets a little harder to dismiss.
About Sam Neumann
Since the beginning of 2023, Sam has been a staff writer for Awful Announcing and The Comeback. A 2021 graduate of Temple University, Sam is a Charlotte native, who currently calls Greenville, South Carolina his home. He also has a love/hate relationship with the New York Mets and Jets.