Tigers-Guardians Game 5 featured random, mid-inning commercial break

As the Detroit Tigers were trying to stage a late-game comeback on the Cleveland Guardians in Game 5 of the American League Division Series on Saturday, the TBS broadcast was interrupted by a random commercial.

With Austin Meadows on second base and nobody out, Detroit’s Jake Rogers hit a line drive that appeared ticketed to the outfield. Cleveland’s Brayan Rocchio, though, had other ideas. He made a leaping grab which kept Meadows at second base and helped thwart a potential rally.

The subsequent call of play-by-play man Brian Anderson showed what a big play it was. Or, at least the part of the call that viewers heard did.

“Liner, caught by Rocchio,” Anderson exclaimed. “Oh, wow. Brayan Rocchio timed his…”

At that point, the broadcast quickly cut away to a random DraftKings commercial, starring David Ortiz.

Brian Anderson is interrupted by a DraftKings commercial during the 8th inning of the Tigers-Guardians ALDS Game 5 broadcast on TBS. ⚾️🎙️📺💰😵‍💫 #MLB pic.twitter.com/5hIJtkiz50

— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) October 12, 2024

Certainly this wasn’t intended to be a full commercial break, as it didn’t come between innings or during a pitching change. It’s possible that it could have been intended to be a split-screen commercial. But usually those happen during mini breaks, like mound visits. Also, Anderson was in the middle of a sentence when the commercial started. So, chances are, this was just a pure blunder.

We’ve seen this recently in other sports. Sometimes the accidental cutaways have been relatively harmless, missing nothing significant. Others have been far more notable, missing big plays.

Fortunately for TBS and those watching Game 5, this mishap falls into the former category.

The cutaway lasted about 35 seconds. While viewers did miss one pitch thrown by Cleveland’s Emmanuel Clase to the next hitter, Trey Sweeney, it was just a called strike.

[Photo Credit: DraftKings/TBS]