Credit where it’s due to Melanie Newman

[InsideCoroner]

Up to this point, it’s fair to say I have not been a fan of Melanie Newman in the booth, except for some between-inning coverage where I found her passable. So far I found her somewhere between distracting and exhausting, and not particularly skilled at calling the action on the field. So I was somewhat dismayed to find that she was calling last night’s game with Ben.

But to be fair, I thought she did quite a good job overall. It wasn’t perfect, but she seemed much more in control and even managed a bit of rapport with Ben over a few topics. To the point where I might prefer to hear her again over someone like Scott Garceau or maybe Geoff Arnold. That might not sound particularly impressive, low-hanging fruit and all, but considering how irritating I found her until now, I thought it was a dramatic improvement.

Edited May 9 by InsideCoroner

[Fiver6565]

Hmm.  I'm going to just disagree and walk away from this one.  I've said enough negative things about Melanie in other threads.  I wish she was better because I think its really cool that female PBP announcers are becoming a little more common.  But they still need to be good at their job.  I hope at some point we hear a good one, but I haven't yet (the A's lady is awful too, sadly).

[interloper]

She called Rutschman "Santander" in literally the first inning. 

Not that I haven't heard Jim and Kevin both do similar, though. 

Edited May 9 by interloper

[Ripken]

She's horrible.

[Matty2D]

She made many mistakes last night, not saying that Kevin Brown or any other announcer doesn't. But it is clear she isn't really amazing at calling plays.

[SteveA]

I listened to about 3 innings of Sunday's game driving home from NoVA.   The 6th/7th/8th.   She was PBP for one of those innings and color for the other two.   And I have to admit, the one inning I listened to, I didn't have any difficulty deciphering what was going on, as I often have in the past with her.   

I watch so many games on TV that I don't listen that much on the radio.   So it's hard for me to say if she has improved or if I happened to get a really good, but small sample size, of her work on Sunday.

I got home in the 9th inning and parked the car in front of the house with the score 7-0.   Walked in, turned on the TV, and it was 11-0.   So I missed Tony's grand slam.

[InsideCoroner]

So it’s just me that saw a difference, then. Alright. 

[Gurgi]

She was awful.  I listened to her stumble around but Roy Firestone had to mute her.  

She had some great call on Santander homerun.

• 
   

Melanie: "And Santander ties it up on a…. Swing!"

Melanie!  you need to do better.

Edited May 9 by Gurgi

[Jagwar]

She's great at what she does for MASN

Except call play by play

[Sanfran327]

I made this joke in another thread, but it's more relevant to this one, so I'll do it again.

1,000% chance Melanie Newman says "gracias!" with a big, dopey smile after ordering her meal at a Mexican restaurant. 

[Sports Guy]

The Gunnar HR call was horrific.

She referred to McCann as Adley on a throw to second.

I don’t expect perfection. People make mistakes and misspeak. I get it.

But she’s not good imo. 

[Frobby]

As I've said numerous times, she's tolerable on TV PBP, where a timely and accurate description of the action is not essential.  I wouldn't say she's good at it, but it's passable.   It's the radio PBP where she's basically unacceptable.  

[Gurgi]

Honestly I dont know her history but she seems like she did not grow up a baseball nut but is trying this just to be an announcer.   If baseball really has to force women into all these jobs they should go to the women who played softball at a high level like college and international level.  Bring them in.  There are some amazing women softball players that would actually have real insight into the game.  

[Otter]

The thing that bothers me the most about her is sometimes her tone, inflection, and volume aren't appropriate for the moment.  Her voice gets excited during a routine pop-up, but she delivers a late, monotone, and confusing description of exciting run scoring plays.  If she was the PBP announcer for an A ball team, it would be ok.  But the fact that she's the backup PBP announcer for a MLB team is just embarrassing.

[Frobby]

Just now, Sports Guy said:

The Gunnar HR call was horrific.

 

Everybody missed that.   Ben too.   He read the body language of the outfielder and while the ball was in flight said something like, "wow, I really thought that was going out."   And then it did.   From my upper deck seats it was hard to follow the flight of the ball and I had the exact reaction Ben did.

As an aside, the Nats' broadcast booth is very high up and very far back.   I was sitting in the 5th row of the upper deck and the press box was way behind and higher than where I was sitting.