LOS ANGELES \u2014 A good many Padres fans \u2014 or are they a vocal minority? \u2014 get worked up when a national telecast involves their squad.<\/p>\n
Their fine-tuned antennae detect from network broadcasters an anti-Padres bias, plus a cluelessness about the Padres.<\/p>\n
Sunday\u2019s NBC\/Peacock telecast of the Padres-Dodgers series, I predict, won\u2019t bring more of the same.<\/p>\n
Not regarding Jake Peavy, at least.<\/p>\n
If the NBC newcomer were any more pro-Padre, he\u2019d wear a brown-and-gold blazer at Dodger Stadium.<\/p>\n
Peavy pitched for several Padres teams, winning a Cy Young award. And he works for the Padres, reporting to A.J. Preller on the baseball side and Erik Greupner on the corporate end.<\/p>\n
\u201cI hope that the Padres\u2019 fans enjoy getting to hear my perspective,\u201d said Peavy, 45. \u201cI don\u2019t know that they want us to be biased either way. They just want\u00a0knowledge of either team.\u201d<\/p>\n
As part of \u201cStar Spangled Sunday\u201d that has NBC entities broadcasting all 15 MLB games in one day, Peavy will partner with White Sox play-by-play broadcaster Jason Benetti, Dodgers broadcast analyst Orel Hershiser and dugout reporter C.C. Sabathia, making it three Cy Young winners on the call.<\/p>\n
\u201cJake\u2019s got a sharp mind and a quick wit,\u201d Benetti said in an email. \u201cAfter doing one game with him, it was very clear that he\u2019s a really strong listener, too. Great teammate.\u201d<\/p>\n
My advice to Peavy: be yourself.\u00a0And please, don\u2019t talk as often as John Smoltz.<\/p>\n
As with his pitching career, Peavy won\u2019t lack for enthusiasm.<\/p>\n
He said he\u2019s fallen in love with game commentary since branching out this year, while also retaining his studio job with MLB Network.<\/p>\n
\u201cI never in a million years envisioned myself doing this,\u201d he said of booth work. \u201cBut baseball has been a big part of my life.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a completely different animal than studio work,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
This will be Peavy\u2019s seventh game from the booth, counting also five MLB games with the BBC and a Padres-Mariners contest alongside Benetti last month.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was so nervous going into that last one in Seattle,\u201d he said, adding that Padres fans gave him nice feedback afterward.<\/p>\n
The Alabama resident said he\u2019s a big fan of every Padres broadcaster.<\/p>\n
He counts friend and former ace pitcher Rick Sutcliffe as a broadcasting mentor, and cherishes the advice from Dick Enberg, conveyed by a mutual friend before the former play-by-play great died nine years ago at 82.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you are calling a game\u2019s first three innings, you let the play-by-play guy introduce the characters,\u201d Peavy said, quoting Enberg.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe second three innings, innings four through six, is where an analyst can shine. You can find a plot throughout the game, and rely on your experience to let the viewer know where the game is going.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd the last three innings, when you hope the game is being decided, you\u2019re taking a bow to the players who have won the game and really giving them their due.\u201d<\/p>\n
It would be ridiculous to ask Peavy to go an entire game without complimenting the Dodgers, despite the ex-Padre and ex-Giant having played teams that he said \u201ccan\u2019t stand the Dodgers.\u201d<\/p>\n
The former Padre, who played under Bruce Bochy and Bud Black in San Diego, deemed L.A. an \u201cexceptionally tight-knit\u201d team.<\/p>\n
\u201cFreddie Freeman and Mookie Betts have that clubhouse; player to player accountability is where it\u2019s at,\u201d said Peavy, a teammate to Betts with Boston\u2019s World Series winner in 2013, a year before the pitcher won a World Series with Bochy\u2019s Giants.<\/p>\n
\u201cDave Roberts,\u201d he said, \u201cis as good of a human being as I\u2019ve played with and been around. He\u2019s a people person. He\u2019s found his footing, and he\u2019s going to the Hall of Fame.\u201d<\/p>\n
Peavy spoke highly of several Padres, including rookie manager Craig Stammen.<\/p>\n
A straight shooter as players go, Peavy would seem well-equipped to address the Padres\u2019 pachyderm in the room: San Diego\u2019s deficient starting rotation is threatening to nix this team\u2019s bid for a playoff berth and prompt a selloff by the Aug 3 trade deadline.<\/p>\n
It would be a mistake if the whole broadcast unfolds without Peavy and his fellow former aces digging into that topic.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LOS ANGELES \u2014 A good many Padres fans \u2014 or are they a vocal minority? \u2014 get worked…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":385712,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[181,1334,74,76,75,2611,127,1696],"class_list":["post-385711","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-latest-headlines","tag-mlb","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news","tag-san-diego-padres","tag-sports","tag-top-stories-sdut"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/385711","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=385711"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/385711\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/385712"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=385711"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=385711"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=385711"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}