Saturday’s broadcast of the matchup between the San Francisco Giants and the Tampa Bay Rays on NBC Sports Bay Area featured a bizarre scorebug issue that resulted in a pitcher being misnamed in perhaps the weirdest way possible.
The game itself wasn’t all that interesting. The Giants were easily able to cruise to a blowout victory. But in a way, things got interesting when the Rays decided to put Ben Rortvedt, a catcher, on the mound to pitch in the bottom of the eighth inning.
It’s always fun to see how positioned players will fare when they are asked to pitch. But for the entire first inning of Rortvedt’s appearance on the mound, he was listed on the NBC Sports Bay Area scorebug as “Currentpitcher Lastname”.
Currentpitcher Lastname handled the eighth inning for the Rays on Saturday. pic.twitter.com/J3Ymj9bPqV
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) April 13, 2024
Funny enough, the entire time that Rortvedt was listed under this generic and obviously incorrect name, he pitched great. He got into a bases-loaded jam, but was able to get out of it with a scoreless inning.
They then corrected the issue, listing his name as Rortvedt correctly as he came back out for the ninth inning. And immediately, Rortvedt got rocked for a solo home run at the hands of Giants third baseman Matt Chapman.
This kind of scorebug issue typically happens when they don’t have a player in the system for the scorebug. Which makes sense because Rortvedt is obviously not a player who typically pitches all that often.
That being said, it doesn’t make the error any more hilarious. Especially because he did pitch so well while he was listed as “Currentpitcher Lastname”. Who knows, maybe “Currentpitcher Lastname” has a future in pitching in the Rays bullpen after all…
[Awful Announcing on Twitter/X]
