Quick Pitch (TV series)
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''Quick Pitch'' is an American television show centered on showing highlights of baseball games from the previous night. ''Quick Pitch'' airs on
MLB Network The MLB Network is an American television sports channel dedicated to baseball. It is primarily owned by Major League Baseball, with Warner Bros. Discovery through its sports unit, Comcast's NBC Sports Group, Charter Communications, and Cox C ...
during the MLB regular season at 1 A.M. ET every weeknight (sometimes earlier if there are fewer than three west coast games), 10 P.M. ET every Sunday, and after Saturday Night Baseball or
MLB Tonight ''MLB Tonight'' is the signature program that airs on MLB Network and is simulcast on MLB Network Radio. The show offers complete coverage of all Major League Baseball games from 6pm ET – 1am ET during the regular season, and gives news from al ...
every Saturday. Reruns of ''Quick Pitch'' are shown overnights and mornings during the regular season.


Format

''Quick Pitch'' is set in MLB Network's Studio 21 with the host(s) standing on set. The show typically consists of highlights, but major stories such as contract signings, trades or player retirements are also covered. Usually after each highlight, the starting pitchers for the teams' next game are shown. A unique trait of ''Quick Pitch'' is that in the highlights, they use the television or radio announcers' call of the game instead of the host commentating every play. ''Quick Pitch'' is similar in format to the
ESPN ESPN (originally an initialism for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by ESPN Inc., owned jointly by The Walt Disney Company (80%) and Hearst Communications (20%). Th ...
show '' SportsCenter'' but covers baseball exclusively.


Hosts

In 2009 and 2010, Quick Pitch was exclusively a single-host program with
Hazel Mae Hazel Mae Barker (born April 7, 1970), known professionally as Hazel Mae, is a Filipino-Canadian sportscaster. She was the former lead anchor for the New England Sports Network's SportsDesk news program and most recently the anchor on MLB Networ ...
hosting Sunday-Thursday and Matt Yallof hosting Friday and Saturday. For the 2011 season, Mae and Yallof moved to a new afternoon program, ''The Rundown''. Newly hired anchor Paul Severino anchored the Monday and Wednesday editions of the show in 2011, and fellow newly hired anchor Ahmed Fareed anchored Thursday-Sunday that same year. Lisa Kerney served as a frequent Sunday night and fill-in anchor in 2011. With the addition of several new reporters, the hosting work of Quick Pitch was split between five different anchors in 2012, including Fareed, Severino, Greg Amsinger, Scott Braun, and Alanna Rizzo, with Sam Ryan acting as a fill-in anchor. Due to the typical lack of ''MLB Tonight'' on Tuesday nights in 2011 because of doubleheader live game coverage, MLB Network used an anchor-analyst format for ''Quick Pitch'' on the Tuesday edition, which was nicknamed "Two-fer Tuesday" for this reason. Greg Amsinger hosts and Dan Plesac provided analysis for the first edition, then different combinations subsequently. On June 23, 2011, Quick Pitch experimented with a "Three-fer Thursday" version of Quick Pitch in which host Ahmed Fareed was joined by analysts
Dan Plesac Daniel Thomas Plesac (born February 4, 1962) is a former Major League Baseball pitcher with an 18-year career from 1986 to 2003. He played for the Milwaukee Brewers, Toronto Blue Jays, Chicago Cubs, Pittsburgh Pirates, Arizona Diamondbacks, and ...
and
Harold Reynolds Harold Craig Reynolds (born November 26, 1960) is an American former professional baseball player and current television sports commentator. He played in Major League Baseball as a second baseman from to , most prominently as a member of the Se ...
. The most likely reason for this experiment was the short 5-game MLB schedule on that particular day, resulting in a lack of highlights to air. Since the show runs for a full hour regardless of the number of games, the analysts filled up time in the show with in-depth discussion and analysis. In previous years, this extra time had to be filled by long-form recorded segments due to the single-host format of the show. Having analyst(s) on the program has been common since mid-2011; analyst(s) host the show alongside an anchor one or twice each week, usually on Wednesdays and/or Thursdays. The other days of the week still feature solo-anchored editions of the show. On August 3, 2012, '' Intentional Talk'' hosts
Kevin Millar Kevin Charles Millar (; born September 24, 1971) is an American former professional baseball first baseman and outfielder who played in Major League Baseball (MLB) and is a current analyst for MLB Network. He played in MLB for the Florida Marli ...
and
Chris Rose Christopher Rose (born January 27, 1971) is an American sportscaster for the NFL Network. He is also a commentator for the Discovery Channel series ''BattleBots'' and podcast host for Jomboy Media. Early life and career Rose, who was born and r ...
hosted a "One Night Special" edition of Quick Pitch during one of the hosts' monthly visits to the MLB Network studios. After presenting highlights from the nine games of the day, they hosted a "Kevin's Highlights" segment, a segment normally featured on ''Intentional Talk''. In 2013, Heidi Watney became the full-time host of Quick Pitch and the show was moved from Studio 42 to Studio 3. Watney hosted Quick Pitch during weeknights, while on weekends, Rizzo and Ryan hosted. Also from 2013 on, it did not feature analyst(s) as it had been the previous two years (2011 and 2012). In 2015, the show moved from Studio 3 to the newly christened Studio 21. While Watney and Ryan maintained their duties, Rizzo left to join the Los Angeles Dodgers broadcast team (though she later returned to MLB Network as the co-host of ''High Heat'' with
Chris Russo Christopher Michael Russo (born October 18, 1959), also known as Mad Dog, is an American sports radio personality best known as the former co-host of the '' Mike and the Mad Dog'' sports radio program with Mike Francesa, which was broadcast on ...
). Following Sam Ryan's departure from MLB Network in June 2018, Jamie Hersch (from the NHL Network, MLBN's sister channel) replaced the former as weekend host. Kelly Nash currently (2022) hosts ''Quick Pitch'' on weekends and occasional weekdays, with occasional fill-ins from Hersch as well as Jackie Redmond (also from the NHL Network), Alexa Datt (who left in 2021 to join
Bally Sports Midwest Bally Sports Midwest is an American regional sports network owned by Diamond Sports Group, a joint venture between Sinclair Broadcast Group and Entertainment Studios, and operates as an affiliate of Bally Sports. The channel broadcasts regional e ...
), and
Lauren Gardner Lauren Gardner (born September 6, 1985) is an American sportscaster who is employed by the DAZN Group, MLB Network, and NHL Network. Sportscasting career Gardner interned at FOX Sports Rocky Mountain and ''Mile High Sports'' magazine. She h ...
(who joined the MLB Network in 2019 and is the current host of ''
Off Base ''Off Base'' is an American baseball commentary show on MLB Network. The show airs every weekday at 4:00 p.m. ET during the Major League Baseball regular season and is hosted by Lauren Gardner with analysis from Xavier Scruggs, Ariel Epste ...
''). Following Watney's departure after the 2021 season,
Siera Santos Siera Santos (born June 10, 1988) is an American sportscaster. She is a MLB Network personality who was hired to be one of the hosts of ''Quick Pitch'' after Heidi Watney left. Santos has also been a fill-in host for '' Off Base'', and is also an ...
and Keiana Martin became the show's new main hosts in 2022. {{Major League Baseball on national television MLB Network original programming 2009 American television series debuts 2010s American television series Major League Baseball studio shows