The New York Yankees and Cleveland Guardians will face off in the MLB playoffs for the fourth time since 2017, but this battle, with the World Series on the line, will sound a lot different than the 2022 ALDS.
As most probably surmised during his fond and extended farewell to the booth at the conclusion of Game 4 of Yankees-Royals, Bob Costas signed off on Thursday for the duration of the postseason. He's called one DS per year for the past few seasons, and the Yankees just so happened to be assigned the veteran broadcaster in both '22 and '24.
Now that TBS only has one series remaining, they'll let Costas rest for the winter, and will send a different booth on the road to follow the Yankees and Guards.
No promises that switching the voices will solve the many other problems associated with the TBS broadcast in the last round, but at least the Yankees are getting the A Team this time. No word yet on how often George Brett will inexplicably be featured.
How to Watch Yankees vs. Guardians ALCS broadcasters
Much like the ALDS, the Yankees' World-Series-or-go-home best-of-seven will be broadcast on TBS, as well as streamed on TruTV, Max, and MLBTV (out of market). Unlike the ALDS, though, the crew turns over; Darling remains, but he moves from second to third chair, joining the Brian Anderson/Jeff Francoeur booth that just finished calling the Guardians/Tigers series.
Game 1 will feature Carlos Rodón taking the rubber for the Yankees, with Gerrit Cole to follow behind him in Game 2. Clarke Schmidt and Luis Gil will take the assignments for the Yankees' two assured road games, though the Yankees will likely carry a long reliever on this round's roster (Marcus Stroman? Cody Poteet?) so that Gil can operate with no piggyback potential.
As for the Guardians? Anderson and Francoeur have more familiarity with them, at this point, but manager Stephen Vogt has emulated the Tigers' "Chaos Ball" a bit. Tanner Bibee will likely start Game 1. Matthew Boyd will appear. Alex Cobb will show up. From there, we officially have no rules.