This is why they did it: wild card game ratings high - MLB

People like me (i.e. fans of the team that lost the wild card playoff) can whine all we want about how baseball is poorly-suited for a one-game playoff, but it’s pretty academic when Major League Baseball issues press releases like this:

Through its first two days of coverage, TBS is averaging 3.9 million viewers, up +26% over last year’s first two days of Postseason coverage. The two Wild Card Games averaged more than 4.6 million viewers, up +61% over last year’s first day of coverage and also exceeded the average 4.2 million viewers for the entire 19-game 2011 Division Series.

I’m assuming there won’t be too much crowing about the third day of the playoffs in which the first two games were opposite afternoon NFL action and the Yankees game — likely slotted at 6PM to avoid going head-to-head against Sunday Night Football — was forced to go head-to-head against Sunday night football thanks to the rain delay.

Roger Clemens will be an analyst for ESPN when the defending World Series champion Houston Astros host the Chicago White Sox on opening day.

Clemens made four appearances on last year’s KayRod Cast with Michael Kay and Alex Rodriguez. He will be stepping in on March 30 for David Cone, who will be doing the New York Yankees opener against the San Francisco Giants on YES Network.

“Roger has been sort of a friend of ours for the last year, so to speak, he’s in. He’s been engaged, knowledgeable and really present,” said ESPN Vice President of Production Phil Orlins. “You know, whatever past may be, he’s still tremendously engaged and he really brought that every time he was with us.”

Clemens was a seven-time Cy Young winner but his career after baseball has been tainted by allegations of performance-enhancing drug use. He is a Houston native and pitched for the Astros for three seasons.

Orlins said that with the rules changes and pitch clock, it is important to have a pitcher in the booth with Karl Ravech and Eduardo Perez.

“We don’t feel like we have to have the dynamic of Eduardo with a pitcher, but we certainly think that works. Throw in the added factor of rule changes and it is better to have a batter-pitcher perspective,” Orlins said.

Orlins did not say if this would open the door for future opportunities for Clemens as an ESPN analyst.