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Live Blog: BBC 5 Live Sports Extra – Rays-Twins

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Major League Baseball makes its debut on BBC Radio 5 Live Sports Extra this evening, with ex-‘Baseball on 5’ presenters Jonny Gould and Josh Chetwynd providing coverage of a top match-up from the American League.  The Tampa Bay Rays take on the Minnesota Twins from Target Field, with the BBC’s coverage beginning at 7 p.m. and first pitch set for ten minutes later.  A preview of the game can be found below.

To celebrate this great news, we are running a live blog to conincide with the radio coverage.  Join us from 7 p.m. by clicking on the ‘CoverItLive’ widget below.  Feel free to submit comments through the widget during the event, rather than using the main comments section.  Comments will not go live automatically, mainly so that if you are asking a question we can write up an answer and then publish the two together where necessary, so don’t panic if your comment isn’t published immediately.  If you can’t join us live, you’ll be able to read the blog back at your leisure after the event has finished.

Enjoy the game! 

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Tampa Bay Rays (47-33) @ Minnesota Twins (44-37)

It was expected that both the Rays and the Twins would be in the thick of the postseason race and so it has proved up to this point.  Tampa Bay are in third place in the American League East, just two games behind the division-leading New York Yankees and 1.5 games behind the Boston Red Sox.  Minnesota are level with the Detroit Tigers at the top of the American League Central division.

Today’s contest is the fourth and final game of the series and the Rays hold a 2-1 advantage following their 8-6 win yesterday.  Tampa Bay trailed 5-1 after seven innings before launching a seven-run assault in the top of the eighth, capped by a Matt Joyce grand slam.  Jim Thome homered twice for the Twins in the loss, tying and then passing Twins great Harmon Killebrew for tenth on the all-time home run list with the 573rd and 574th long balls of his career.

Both starting pitchers in today’s game will be glad that the calendar has turned over to July after having Junes to forget.  The Rays’ James Shields pitched well through the first two months of the season (3.62 ERA over eleven starts) before being hit for 28 runs in 29.1 innings during June.  The Twins’ Nick Blackburn had a poor April, an excellent May and then a terrible June ( 29 runs conceded in 25.2 innings) so he will be hoping he can continue the sequence with an excellent July and then carry on in that vein rather than alternating back to a bad month again in August.

Baseball Basics

If you are new to baseball, a useful guide to all the basics of a baseball game can be found on the BaseballSoftballUK website as a pdf here.  Details about many other aspects of Major League Baseball (the structure of the competition, the make-up of an MLB roster etc) can be found in our ‘Baseball Basics for Brits’ series. If you have any questions during the game, however basic they may seem, please just pass them on in the live blog and we’ll be more than happy to answer them.

BBC Radio 5 Live Sports Extra to broadcast MLB

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Mlb5XtraHlBBC Radio 5 Live Sports Extra is scheduled to broadcast a live MLB game for the first time next Sunday evening.  Baseball fans across Britain will be sitting excitedly at their DAB radio or computer to listen to a top match-up from the American League as the Rays take on the Twins at Target Field from 19.00.

British-based baseball fans have longed for some good news telling us that our beloved sport would be available more widely once again ever since Five’s decision to discontinue their North American sports coverage at the end of 2008, ending a 13 year relationship with MLB.

While established baseball fans can take advantage of subscriptions to ESPN America (now in HD on Sky) and/or the great offerings at MLB.com, MLB’s disappearance from terrestrial TV has been a big blow in the campaign to attract newcomers to the sport.

This isn’t quite a return to TV coverage, but it’s the next best thing.  Baseball suits the radio medium perfectly, in the same way that the BBC’s Test Match Special is the preferred way to follow England’s cricketing exploits for many people.

We don’t yet have details about whether this a one-off deal or a longer term arrangement, or quite what the programme format will be.  The NFL coverage on 5 Live Sports Extra normally takes a local radio feed for the game (occasionally they provide their own commentary), with a UK-based studio providing analysis and news during breaks in the play.  Arlo White, Neil Reynolds, Greg Brady and the rest of the ‘NFL on BBC’ crew take a similar approach to that of ‘Baseball on 5’: insightful analysis for both newcomers and established fans, with plenty of humour and audience interaction thrown in for good measure.

Hopefully the MLB coverage will take a similar format and it will be a regular programme.  ‘Baseball on 5’ didn’t just provide us with MLB games, it was the focal point for the British baseball community.  It’s not quite the same without the likes of Jonny Gould and Josh Chetwynd bringing us all together and if the BBC coverage can take on that role, it will be great news for us all.

19:00 –23:00 Sports Extra Baseball

Commentary on Tampa Bay Rays against Minnesota Twins on American independence day.

Who would have thought that a quick glimpse at the BBC Radio 5 Live Sports Extra schedule could bring so much joy?

UPDATE: As noted by Chris in the comments, it’s been confirmed that Jonny and Josh will indeed be hosting the show.  Roll on Sunday evening!

We are provisionally planning to run a live blog during next Sunday’s game.  More details will follow nearer the event.