The Texas Rangers completed a thrilling Game 7 victory over the Houston Astros on Tuesday night, sending the franchise to its first World Series since 2012. The ALCS was broadcast by the lead FOX Sports baseball announcing team of Joe Davis, John Smoltz, Ken Rosenthal, and Tom Verducci, with the network’s pregame show including Alex Rodriguez and David Ortiz also working on location.
In recapping the victory though, Rangers fans evidently remember a part of the MLB on FOX Pregame that proved to be incorrect.
Before the start of Game 7, analysts and former New York Yankees teammates Alex Rodriguez and Derek Jeter selected the Rangers to come away with the win, while former Boston Red Sox slugger David Ortiz chose the Astros. During the Tuesday morning edition of Shan & RJ on 105.3 The Fan, Shan Shariff provided his opinion on what Ortiz had to say prior to the win-or-go-home matchup.
“David Ortiz, who’s 1 million percent clueless as I tweeted, probably picked the Astros to win in eight last night even after the game,” Shariff said. “He’s so freaking clueless. He has no idea where he even is – some generic crap that he spews out, but Jeter and A-Rod were on team Rangers.”
While he feels strongly about Ortiz being subpar on the FOX Sports broadcasts, he can understand where the Hall of Fame member was coming from with his opinion. The Astros have advanced to seven consecutive league championship series and captured two World Series championships over the previous six seasons. The Rangers, however, clicked on all cylinders last night en route to a pennant win.
“When Derek [Jeter] was like, ‘I just don’t think they’re going to be able to score enough,’ I was like, ‘What?,’” referring to the Houston Astros. “….I was like, ‘Man, are they really struggling that much offensively,’ and that’s why Jeter picked the Rangers to win.”
Jeter, Rodriguez, and Ortiz will be featured on the World Series broadcasts alongside pre and postgame host Kevin Burkhardt, which begins Friday.
