Rich Harden looks to lead the Oakland fightback as the A’s try to split the opening series against Boston in Tokyo this morning. First pitch is scheduled for 10.05 GMT.
I posted about the game yesterday, but not about my personal experience of watching it via MLB.tv. Like many of you, my excitement quickly turned to panic when I clicked the MLB.tv logo on the main page and was confronted by a message stating that the game was subject to a blackout. Of course, this was an error in relation to us British fans and it’s something that has never happened to me before in my first three years using MLB.tv. If it happens to you today, the easiest way around it is to click on the Gameday Audio button for the game instead. You will be prompted for your log-in details as per usual and once you are in, you can select the MLB.tv logo from inside the Silverlight/Media player. This will then let you into the game without bringing up the incorrect blackout message.
The new Silverlight player worked fine, although the sound went off quite frequently to start with. This may have been an ESPN issue rather than MLB.tv. The new 2008 streaming rates were not available though (800K and 1.2MB have been promised), leaving us with last year’s option of upgrading to 700K from the standard 400K. In all honesty, I watched the whole thing using the 400K feed and the picture quality was perfectly watchable.
Those of you without access to the MLB.com subscription services can follow the game using the Enhanced Gameday service, which looks like it has had a face-lift this morning. Like yesterday, the game is also being shown on NASN.
I’m looking forward to another great game, hopefully with a happier ending for A’s fans like myself! Â
