Padres fans tuning in for Tuesday night\u2019s Wild Card opener against the Cubs will be hearing from a member of the Dodgers\u2019 front office.<\/p>\n
NBC Sports tabbed Clayton Kershaw, the three-time Cy Young Award winner who spent all 18 of his seasons in Los Angeles and has served as a Dodgers special assistant<\/a> since retiring, as the \u201cInside the Pitch<\/a>\u201d analyst for the series, which opens Tuesday, Sept. 29, at 10 p.m. ET on Peacock and NBCSN. Giants play-by-play voice Dave Flemming<\/a> will call the action alongside Cubs analyst Jim Deshaies<\/a> and Padres analyst Mark Grant<\/a>, with John Fanta<\/a> reporting from the field.<\/p>\n During a conference call with reporters<\/a> on Monday, NBC\u2019s Matt Borzello was asked why a pitcher so closely identified with the Dodgers ended up on the Padres-Cubs series, and he explained how the network divided its four \u201cInside the Pitch\u201d analysts, beginning with the two \u2014 Anthony Rizzo<\/a> and Joey Votto<\/a> \u2014 who have logged the most time in the role.<\/p>\n \u201cThat was more we had Anthony call quite a few games on \u2018Inside the Pitch,\u2019 so we put him here in Yankee Stadium again, his attachment to the Yankees as well. Joey\u2019s done \u2018Inside the Pitch\u2019 a few times, so we put him on that game in Atlanta. And then it was Clayton (Kershaw) and Adam (Ottavino) at that point. Both have done an excellent job all season. But it was no actual attachment there. Obviously, Clayton\u2019s done the Dodgers games, but it\u2019s more just kind of where the series fell to put him out there.\u201d<\/p>\n With Rizzo and Votto accounted for, Adam Ottavino<\/a>, the longtime reliever who pitched for both New York clubs, will be on the call for White Sox-Astros in Houston, leaving Kershaw with the series in San Diego.<\/p>\n NBC signed Kershaw, Rizzo and Votto in February to serve as analysts for select Sunday Night Baseball broadcasts and the Wild Card round, then unveiled \u201cInside the Pitch\u201d on Opening Day, borrowing from the \u201cOn the Bench\u201d and \u201cInside the Glass\u201d concepts it had already rolled out for its NBA and NHL coverage, respectively. Ottavino handled the afternoon opener, and Kershaw followed that night with the Dodgers\u2019 primetime game against the Diamondbacks.<\/p>\n The feature stations a former player away from the main booth to break down a pitcher\u2019s plan of attack during pivotal at-bats, leaving the local analysts to carry most of the commentary for their respective fan bases. NBC pairs that analysis with footage from the camera worn by the home plate umpire, cutting between the standard broadcast angle and the umpire\u2019s view as the analyst narrates the at-bat, which has also given viewers a clearer look at pitch location during ABS challenges. In his review of NBC\u2019s first MLB broadcasts<\/a>, Awful Announcing\u2019s Brendon Kleen singled out Ottavino as the feature\u2019s standout, while noting that Kershaw at times sounded more like he was delivering studio analysis layered over the action than walking viewers through the at-bat in real time.<\/p>\n NBC has since worked out the kinks, and the feature has been lauded as one of the more inventive broadcast wrinkles to hit sports media \u2014 let alone baseball \u2014 in years, but Kershaw hasn\u2019t had many chances to benefit from those refinements, as his next assignment for the network after Opening Day didn\u2019t come until August<\/a>. To be fair, though, he has since worked a Dodgers-Braves<\/a> game alongside Joe Davis<\/a> on SportsNet LA, his first time as a color analyst on the team\u2019s local telecast.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Padres fans tuning in for Tuesday night\u2019s Wild Card opener against the Cubs will be hearing from a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":817407,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2406],"tags":[8651,3882,5,24,1147,27931,39,81887,14199,27630,24851,1165,4332,4333,774,57,3224,4331,28953,99450,4,33941,18,9386],"class_list":["post-817406","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles-dodgers","tag-adam-ottavino","tag-anthony-rizzo","tag-baseball","tag-chicago-cubs","tag-clayton-kershaw","tag-dave-flemming","tag-dodgers","tag-inside-the-pitch","tag-jim-deshaies","tag-joey-votto","tag-john-fanta","tag-la","tag-la-dodgers","tag-ladodgers","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-dodgers","tag-losangeles","tag-losangelesdodgers","tag-mark-grant","tag-matt-borzello","tag-mlb","tag-mlb-on-nbc","tag-san-diego-padres","tag-wild-card-series"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/117355744111666344","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/817406","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=817406"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/817406\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/817407"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=817406"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=817406"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=817406"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}