American TV series or program
Quick Pitch
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Starring
| Abby Labar (weekdays)
Kelly Nash (weekends and fill-in)
Erika Wachter (fill-in)
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Opening theme
| 2017? "
HandClap
" by
Fitz and the Tantrums
2009?2016 "Crowd Chant" by
Joe Satriani
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Country of origin
| United States
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No.
of seasons
| 8
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No.
of episodes
| approx. 1,440 (180 per season)
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Running time
| 60 minutes
(including commercials)
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Network
| MLB Network
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Release
| April 6, 2009
(
2009-04-06
)
?
present
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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
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
every Saturday. Reruns of
Quick Pitch
are shown overnights and mornings during the regular season.
Format
[
edit
]
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
show
SportsCenter
but covers baseball exclusively.
Hosts
[
edit
]
In 2009 and 2010, Quick Pitch was exclusively a single-host program with
Hazel Mae
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
and
Harold Reynolds
. 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
and
Chris Rose
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
).
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 fellow NHL Network personalities Jackie Redmond, Erika Wachter, and
Lauren Gardner
(who joined the MLB Network in 2019 and is the current host of
Off Base
). Alexa Datt (who also worked at NHL Network) also filled in occasionally until her departure in 2021 (when she joined
Bally Sports Midwest
).
Following Watney's departure after the 2021 season,
Siera Santos
and Keiana Martin became the show's new main hosts in 2022. In 2023 Martin became the primary host after Santos became the lead host of
Intentional Talk
, though Santos still hosts
Quick Pitch
on occasion. In late July 2023,
Marquee Sports
reporter Taylor McGregor made her first appearance as a fill-in.
Martin left MLB Network following the 2023 season to join
CBS Sports Network
, and Abby Labar was named as the show’s new primary host starting in 2024.
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Current
personalities
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Former
personalities
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Programming
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Miscellaneous
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Contract history
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Broadcasters
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Pay television carriers
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Streaming media carriers
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MLB owned
and operated entities
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Broadcast days
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Local broadcasters
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News television series
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Specialty programming
| Reality television series
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Broadcasters by event
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International coverage
| Australia
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United Kingdom and Ireland
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Canada
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Latin America
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Brazil
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Japan
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South Korea
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Landmark events
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Miscellaneous
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