MLB Division Series

I wasn't too sure that I would like TBS covering the baseball playoffs. But they had the courage to have the Yankees play their first Division Series Game at a time other than 8 PM ET when they slotted the Yankees for the 4:30 start time yesterday and placed the Red Sox and Angels in the 8 PM ET slot. The Yanks had always been in the prime time slot, even when they were facing the Twins, a team with revenues so low that MLB wanted it to cease operations a few years ago.

What I like - Dan Orsillo and Ted Robinson as play-by-play guys. What I don't, Dick Stockton. Has he announced a baseball game since Carlton Fisk's Foul Pole Homerun? He certainly hasn't been involved in any national productions in over 20 years and didn't seem to know the rosters of the Cubs and Diamondbacks during the Arizona games. I understand the logic in not having Braves announcers do the playoff games, but then why would Orsillo (Red Sox) and Robinson (Mets) be ok? And the Braves won't be on TBS anymore, so there isn't a conflict of interest.

Being on the west coast, I also like the 3-6-10 start times for the games. 10 is too late for the east coast fan to follow; it works in basketball because the playoffs are separated by geographic region when the 10 ET slot is used. Whether it works long term in baseball, I'm not sure (I remember the uproar in BOS a few years back when the Sox had 10 pm starts against the A's, so this isn't completely new). I haven't had time to digest the additional off-days, but generally speaking, I'm not for them. They de-value the importance of the 162-game regular season by shrinking the size of a pitching staff that a playoff team has to use.