Courtesy USA Today

(October 1, 2009) TBS' coverage of the MLB playoffs will have a few wrinkles, such as occasionally mounting cameras on — but, obviously, also slightly behind — foul poles for close-ups of screaming shots as they pass by.

But in plans that are to be announced today for coverage of all first-round games and the National League Championship Series, TBS seems to have settled on a lineup after starting from scratch when it began postseason coverage in 2007.

All of TBS' announcers return, led by the top team of Chip Caray and Ron Darling calling the New York Yankees' series vs. the Detroit Tigers or Minnesota Twins, then the NLCS in a three-man booth with Buck Martinez. In on-air changes this year, TV rookie David Wells replaces Harold Reynolds, now at MLB Network, in the studio and game analyst Bob Brenly, who called games for TBS in 2007 but not last year because of a scheduling conflict, returns.

Play-by-play includes two team announcers — the Milwaukee Brewers' Brian Anderson and Boston Red Sox's Don Orsillo. Turner Sports executive producer Jeff Behnke says TBS, which used Anderson on Brewers games last year, has no qualms assigning announcers to their home teams: "We look at it as a plus. … We know they'd be neutral."

Technical tweaks this year include the use of TBS' PitchTrax graphics full time on the high-definition broadcast. Usually, these graphics — boxes superimposed over home plate that are meant to show if pitches were strikes — are used only on replays. But in what Behnke suggests will be a first for TV baseball, HD viewers will see those graphics on the right side of the screen on every pitch.

And in a first for TBS, its announcers will use Twitter. But not, Behnke says, during games. Tweeting is "incredibly positive," he says, but "our announcers will never Twitter during broadcasts. They're there for the viewers."

Hopelessly 20th century.

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