[Editors' Note: In an effort to be fair to Major League Baseball Advanced Media, now a Disney-controlled company, I want to be clear that the account of my dreadful experience attempting to stream baseball on the night of August 15, 2017 led me to draw conclusions that later appeared to be faulty. However, I believe there could be some historical value in reproducing my account, flawed as its conclusions might have been, en toto, uncensored and non-redacted. I will include at the end of this entry an epilogue that explains what I did to fix my problems, which probably weren't the fault of MLB.TV.]
The 'Cut Has Landed
I was at my parents' place this morning but the HotCut knew where to find me: NY HotCut.The Early Game, Astros at Diamondbacks
There was one early game, Astros at Diamondbacks. I missed the first fifteen minutes but I heard the rest. It started at 14:40 central daylight. I was on the highway then, driving from Illinois back to Missouri. Stopped at a light on the outskirts of Forest Park I ixnayed the podcast I was listening to and tuned in Candy and the Governor.Brad Peacock was dealing and the Astros were starting to get to Anthony Banda (it rhymes with Wanda, no matter how much I wanted it to rhyme with panda). A Yuli Gurriel triple scored José Altuve, making it 8-0 Astros. To that point Peacock hadn't allowed a baserunner but Ketel Marte croqueted a single off the first base bag and the flash flood gates opened for the AriZona offense. The Snakes batted around that inning: scored three, stranded three, made three outs. Peacock got the last two outs on whiffs but his pitch count was climbing and I was wondering if he could even manage a five and dive.
He couldn't. Marte got another hit to lead off the fifth. A.J. Pollock grounded into a fielder's choice. Jake Lamb fanned. Paul Goldschmidt ripped a double down the line and A.J. Hinch brought out the hook. Francis Martes then came on in relief. He saw four batters and struck all of them out.
That was just about it for the scoring. Peacock threw 89 pitches, recorded nine strikeouts against just one walk but he allowed seven hits. Martes got those four strikeouts on sixteen pitches ... impressive.
MLB.TV Fail
Our efforts to stream the HotCut resulted in frustration and a near local-net meltdown. It would appear that MLB.TV could not accommodate the demand for tonight's Yankees-Mets game. We could not stream it, we could not even manage to stream the audio feed of the game. I unplugged and then plugged back in both the cable modem and the router. We unplugged the Roku. Somewhere along the line I was logged out of MLB.TV on the Roku—B says she did not log me out so I suspect MLB.TV initiated a forced capsiZe of its audience to clear the decks. To lower our blood pressure readings we forgot about baseball for an hour and streamed a TV show, Shetland. After that I was able to stream Braves at Brewers just fine and now I am streaming Indians at Twins just fine. But when I tried again to stream the Subway Cut I met failure once again.I have to take this moment to observe that MLB.TV is bombarding its audience with these awful recurring ad spots yet it cannot deliver its product when its product is most in demand. If you cannot deliver me Mets - Yankees do not assault me with Anjelica Huston dressed as a fee.
I note Disney's recent takeover of MLB Advanced Media. I saw one new locally targeted ad tonight. Coincidence? Coincidence that the same night the locally targeted ad shows up the MLB servers crash—here it is, Sunset Ford of Waterloo, IL ... I've never seen this ad before tonight. Followed by the GMC commercial "Like a Boss" that I've seen 500 times. I am starting to wonder why I am paying for MLB.TV when I am also doing them the service of allowing my eyeballs to be creepy-crawled by these ad nauseam groundhog-day torture ads. They seem to be having it both ways.
Ah, hell, baseball.
I'm not going to let their antitrust exemption run amok do-nothing Congress free-for-all windfall ruin this night! Well, maybe it already has. I tried to watch the HotCut and I was denied. Food, water, internet?I thought Edwin just lost one off Alan Busenitz but Byron Buxton, who took a while to set himself correctly at the wall, made a last-second sno-cone catch and took a home run away from Edwin. It would have been EE's second of the night.
Admitting MLB.TV Failure is Hard
It's not because the service costs all that much. It's because MLB.TV (sans the blackouts) is my entertainment dream and I don't want to admit it is on the disabled list.Schwarber Pinch-Hits
I'm going blind into this game, how da ya like that? Pat Hughes is my guide. Ball two. Iglesias is going for a five-out save. The 2-0 offering is a strike, 2-and-1. Coomer notes that the Cubs are down two runs, that's all I need to know. Strike two. It's 2-0 Reds. Pat talks about the difference between a one-run game and a two-run game. Lester and Feldman is tomorrow's matchup, ball three. That could be one of the higher opposing pitcher age totals, Dickey and Colón not having faced each other yet because they spent most of this season on the same team. Is Braves - Twins on the schedule? Schwarber fouls one off and the count runneth full. Base hit Schwarber. Hughes says it's one of Schwarber's best at-bats in a while. The audio feed of this game, by the way, has been fine—uninterrupted.Jason Heyward now. A pop foul on a 1-1 offering, and the feed goes to "Buffering..." We have a knack, don't we, as humans? We are the best of timers, we are the worst of timers.
The Radio is Better Anyway
Another foul back. "This ball is out of play." Ground ball left side, base hit, "It's a single. You gotta love the way Schwarber and Heyward have grinded out their at-bats, don't you, Ron?" The fans get to their feet. Báez tries to bunt the first pitch. That's ridiculous with Schwarber at second, down two runs. He bunts again, SAC 5-3. OK, yes, it's second and third now, two runners in scoring position, Heyward with speed on second, one out.Zobrist hits a liner to right. Schwarber scores but Heyward hits a liner to right. It's 2-1. Jon Jay now. This is better than watching on TV anyway. Up and in, the count is 1-and-1. Jay, K. Two out. Alex Avila is pinch-hitting. Avila is in the hole. A ball. "Strike three called and the ballgame is over."
Where to Now, Baseball Spinner?
Let's do it Rando. There are six games remaining. If I had a die, I'd roll it. I'll use random.org. It gives me six. Pat H is wrapping up the Cubs game, which is still live on my app. Lorenzen gets the win, Strop the loss, the game lasted three hours and four minutes. Reds 2, Cubs 1. It was Luis Castillo and Kyle Hendricks in that one. I saw none of it, heard only the very end. Game six on the slate is Phillies at Padres. What did I do?Only the Brewers won tonight amongst those teams in the NL Central scrum. I was looking at the standings. The NL Central certainly ranks lowest if you total all the "games back" of all the trailing teams in the division. The Dodgers have an ocean of wake behind them. The Astros and Nationals not as much but a lot. Unremarkable in this respect are the AL East and the AL Central.
This is Padres on FM 94.9. Through four innings it's 4-0 San Diego. The Phillies have had only one baserunner, Hyun Soo Kim, by way of bases on balls. Folks, we've got ourselves a no-hitter here by Dinelson Lamet.
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The Link to My Entry about Setting up My Router Correctly
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