Post-season Gameday Thread, #17: Giants killer?

5:07pm Arizona time, Fox: series tied 1-1

Jeremy Guthrie RHP, 0-0, 1.80

Tim Hudson RHP, 0-0, 3.29

Alcides Escobar - SS	Gregor Blanco - CF
Alex Gordon - LF	Joe Panik - 2B
Lorenzo Cain - RF	Buster Posey - C
Eric Hosmer - 1B	Pablo Sandoval - 3B
Mike Moustakas - 3B	Hunter Pence - RF
Omar Infante - 2B	Brandon Belt - 1B
Salvador Perez - C	Travis Ishikawa - LF
Jarrod Dyson - CF	Brandon Crawford - SS
Jeremy Guthrie - RHP	Tim Hudson - RHP

It is probably no great shock to discover this World Series is not exactly setting the television ratings ablaze. Indeed, the first game pulled in a 7.3 rating for FOX, meaning just 7.3% of US households were watching the game. That's perhaps the least-viewed World Series game since they started broadcasting them on national television, and down a good chunk even on last year, where the Cardinals and Red Sox drew a 9.4 for their opening game. However, it's not that far off the last time the Giants played - their 2012 series against the Tigers rated a 7.6 - and it's not all bad news.

For example, the 2014 numbers also don't include FOX Deportes, which drew record numbers for a Spanish-language World Series broadcast, and the game broke records too on FOX Sports Go, the streaming application. There was also a rebound on Tuesday night, which was a 7.9 - while still down on the 2013 figure (8.3), it was above the 2012 one (7.8). But it likely won't last: tied or not, Game 3 has been a ratings black-hole, pulling the fewest viewers in every series since 2007. It'll be interesting to see if tonight's can avoid setting a new all-time low: it needs to surpass the 6.1 [less than ten million viewers] for this game in the Phillies/Rays series in 2008.