The Phillies have now won back to back games for the first time since the break and Adam Haseley has certainly been a factor. After hitting his first career home run on Thursday, the 8th overall pick of the 2017 draft followed it up with a moonshot to straight away center last night. All told, Haseley has a three game hitting streak and has only struck out once in that span. It may be a small sample size, but Haseley’s production is much needed on such an injury-riddled team.
Adam Haseley’s first career home run came on Thursday, a game that was broadcast on YouTube. This is something that fans were totally hype for following last year’s Facebook game. I mean, who doesn’t wanna be able to react to the game with emojis? I thought that’s what fans were clamoring for given how much they love P.J. Whelihan’s pitch tracker.
Anyways, YouTube was the only outlet showing the game and it honestly wasn’t that bad overall. The camera angles were solid, replay was tight and although the broadcasting team didn’t really touch on the post-game drama revolving around Hector Neris, I’d say it was an alright job. I only watched a couple innings before heading to work, but that was my takeaway.
What wasn’t good, however, were the announcers in general. The analysts were Ben Davis and Orel Hershiser, who did fine. The play-by-play is where it all went downhill. The game was called by MLB Network contributor Scott Braun, the same play-by-play announcer as the Facebook games.
The thing is though, you wouldn’t think Scott Braun worked for MLB Network given how he calls the game. He sounds like he’s questioning himself the entire time and had no emotion. All of this was on full display for his monotone Adam Haseley home run call.
This call was an absolute war crime! When he said “that’s gonna….. go” it sounded as though he wasn’t sure the ball was even going to! Even as the ball is literally leaving the yard, Scott Braun seemed unsure. I was so taken back by the lack of enthusiasm over a first career home run that I didn’t even know what he meant by “go get that baseball”. He was referring to getting the ball for Haseley but I honestly thought he was commenting on how he went and got the ball. The fact that I couldn’t tell is an indictment, and an indicator of corniness.
It sucks for Adam Haseley that this was the call for his first career homer, but there are worse things. Scott Franzke still got to make the call on WIP and it’s not like T Mac’s “that ball is…..GAAAAHNNN” calls are anything special.
Still, the MLB should really be stepping their game up in these big moments. A free game on YouTube is sure to draw clicks from some irregular viewers, and this is what they see? Scott Braun honestly sounds like a golf announcer and that definitely isn’t what baseball needs to counter the “boring” arguments.
Why couldn’t we have the British announcers from the London series call the Facebook game? Those guys were absolute box office.