Longtime New York Mets color commentator Keith Hernandez returned to the SNY booth on May 4 at Coors Field after missing a few weeks due to undergoing back surgery in early April. On Sunday, Hernandez returned to the Mets booth at Citi Field for the first time since the back surgery. And his return was well-timed, with the Mets making a late comeback to stun the New York Yankees in game three of the Subway Series.

“Well, I’m back,” Hernandez said before the game. “First home game since my surgery… And it’s the first time [Ron Darling] and I have worked together, I think, since [April 12th or April 14th]. Anyway, I’m back.”

“90 percent, no pain, except for listening to some of the other broadcasts,” Hernandez quipped, drawing laughter from Gary Cohen and Ron Darling. “I’m fine. I’m glad to be back.”

Keith is back in the Citi Field booth for the first time since his back surgery! pic.twitter.com/yl7BN8UrRs

— SNY Mets (@SNY_Mets) May 17, 2026

Keith: “No fraternizing in-game”

Gary: “Yeah right… okay, boomer” pic.twitter.com/mBfX2Lh3a5

— SNY (@SNYtv) May 17, 2026

The Mets trailed 6-3 — and by as many as four runs in the game — with two outs in the bottom of the ninth inning when Tyrone Taylor hit a game-tying three-run homer.

TYRONE TAYLOR TIES THIS BALLGAME pic.twitter.com/3Ixo66O7ZE

— MLB (@MLB) May 17, 2026

In the bottom of the 10th, Carson Benge (who had a tough moment on Saturday that led to a wild call from Fox announcer Joe Davis) and the Mets walked it off to win the series and cap off a 5-1 homestand.

CARSON BENGE WALKS IT OFF

The @Mets take the series from the Yankees! pic.twitter.com/jg6VhoA9lH

— MLB (@MLB) May 17, 2026

On X, SNY showed how Hernandez, Cohen, and Darling reacted to those two moments.

“IT’S OUTTA HERE! OUTTA HERE!

TYRONE TAYLOR TIES THE GAME WITH A THREE-RUN HOMER!”

Gary, Keith and Ron on the call for the Mets’ incredible comeback against the Yankees pic.twitter.com/ahRRJ6KJPO

— SNY (@SNYtv) May 17, 2026

pic.twitter.com/KOG61G8xnv

— SNY (@SNYtv) May 17, 2026

That’s certainly a fun way for Hernandez to return to Citi Field for a Mets booth that Awful Announcing readers ranked as Major League Baseball’s No. 2 local booth in 2025, and No. 1 in 2024.

The post Keith Hernandez’s return to Citi Field booth features wild Mets comeback win over Yankees appeared first on Awful Announcing.

The New York Yankees and New York Mets played game two of this weekend’s Subway Series on Saturday at Citi Field, and the game was an MLB on Fox telecast with the network’s top crew of Joe Davis and John Smoltz on the call.

In the top of the sixth inning, Davis and Smoltz discussed the Automated Ball-Strike (ABS) Challenge System, which Major League Baseball is using for the first time with the 2026 season.

As Davis explained, walk rates (specifically, unintentional walk rates) are at an all-time high because the ABS has shrunk the strike zone.

Davis then asked Smoltz, “Would you tweak the ABS zone, make it bigger in certain areas?”

“No,” Smoltz, who was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2015 and won the NL Cy Young Award in 1996, responded. “I think lowering it gives hitters a chance with velocity down vs. velocity up. If that strike zone was higher, no chance.”

“That’s a spot where the zone has shrunk the most,” Davis said. “The top of the zone is three inches shorter than what umpires were calling last year.”

“We’ve already seen when you have the ability to fractionally touch the baseball across an electric strike zone, you see how much bigger it is, right?” Smoltz said. “Because if they didn’t lower it, imagine the top of the strike zone being that much bigger… And then you couple that with the ability to spin a baseball, top to bottom. Again, a ball for the longest time, and barely catching the back end of that strike zone. Hitters would have a hard time adjusting.”

“What is the answer then?” Davis asked. “Because I don’t think more walks and less swinging is good.”

“No, it’s not,” Smoltz responded. “The answer is, we’ve got to do a better job with our pitching. They’re just, guys aren’t ready. Like, they’re forced to the big leagues because of injuries. They’re forced to the big leagues because nobody pitches enough innings. And they’re just not prepared to be able to be out there long enough. Because the inability to command a secondary pitch is flawed, and the throw it super hard has never been greater. So, that’s the answer, but they may come after some rule changes.”

“But even to get it back to where it was the last couple years, when it was the same deal, right? Guys throwing hard, but not necessarily commanding it,” Davis said. “There’s got to be some kind of tweak we can make there to the ABS zone, no? That could at least get it back to where it was?”

“I mean, the only thing, east to west, not north to south,” Smoltz said. “So, if you wanted to expand it a little bit.”

Overall, the ABS has been well-received in its first two months of existence in MLB. The league will surely dig into the data and consider feedback regarding potential tweaks to the ABS for future seasons.

The post Joe Davis, John Smoltz discuss whether MLB should change ABS strike zone appeared first on Awful Announcing.

Fox Sports will be putting a new spin on the favorite MLB rivalry game of television partners when the New York Yankees play the Boston Red Sox on June 6.

According to a report from Andrew Marchand at The Athletic, Fox will take the unique step of putting their entire studio crew of Kevin Burkhardt, David Ortiz, Alex Rodriguez, and Derek Jeter all in the broadcast booth to announce the game.

The quartet have several years of experience together in the studio and some of their most notable interactions have naturally centered around their experiences on both sides of the rivalry with Ortiz leading the Red Sox to their famous ALCS comeback and multiple World Series titles. Jeter won five championships with the Yankees as one of the most popular players in franchise history while Rodriguez won one ring with the Bronx Bombers in 2009.

“We know people are tuning in to see the game. We always appreciate that fact. What will be different is the depth of storytelling that we can tell with these guys all in the booth for the length of the game,” said Fox Sports president Brad Zager in the reveal.

Burkhardt has extensive play-by-play experience as the lead voice for the NFL on Fox and has also done plenty of baseball games throughout his career. Rodriguez served as a game analyst at ESPN for a brief stint with Michael Kay. However, this will be the first game broadcast for Jeter and Ortiz.

A four-man broadcast booth is naturally going to be a very crowded place so it’s hard to predict exactly how this is going to go. But it sounds as if it’s going to be equal parts game call and equal parts story time with three legends of the series. As we’ve seen time and again over the years, game broadcasts aren’t really the place to reinvent the wheel and experiment. But maybe Fox can find a way to make this work. At the very least, it should provide some viral moments, especially if Jason Varitek does a run-in to even the odds.

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