Kiké Hernández Was Mic'd Up For Apple TV Last Night And Promptly Booted A Ball For An Error After Getting Asked A Question Mid-Play

Tough look for Apple TV last night as they still try and find their footing in the broadcast game. We're on Year 3 of this I believe and they still can't seem to get the product down. Picture quality is great, everything else is pretty meh, announcers are usually unfamiliar with the teams, and players you can tell they don't really know them at all. We get random stats reading that Giancarlo has a 4.3% chance of hitting an infield fly, and they LOVE to mic up the players mid-game. Not guys in the dugout or bullpen, guys literally in the field. Now during a spring training game it's fine, it's wonderful. A regular season game between the Dodgers and Yankees is probably not when I want my third baseman to have a bug in his ear trying to listen to questions while fielding ground balls. We saw it play out live last night as Kiké Hernández was getting asked a question by Dontrelle Willis and booted a pretty routine ground ball. 

Now I can't find the full clip to upload, somehow this 21 second one is the only one on Twitter but Willis asks Kiké about the Dodgers being a tight knit ball club seconds before Gleyber Torres rips a ball to third. Weird hop and he boots it, picks it up and throws but Torres was safe. Silence, nothing but silence from Kiké who no doubt was unhappy. Now I get what the commenters are going to say, "I would have made that play in my sleep", "I used to make plays like that in JV ball all the time", "How can a professional not focus with some random guy talking in his ear?". First of all Craig, you aren't making that play. You could tell how pissed Hernández was too, it was silent after that. Just awkward silence. Kiké composes himself and asks what the question was again but Willis said he didn't want to ask it and that he would take the error for Hernández. How thoughtful of you Dontrelle!

Now after the game Kiké said he wouldn't reconsider doing the in-game interviews, mainly because players get paid $10,000 to do a regular season mic'd up segment, but man if you're a manager you have to be pissed. Your guy is getting asked about the color of his cleats while Aaron Judge is like 110 feet away trying to hit a home run. Hell, Dave Roberts didn't even know Hernández was wearing a mic. Tough to explain to your manager you booted a ball cuz Dontrelle Willis was talking to you, not a great excuse. This kind of thing is sort of a microcosm for all that is baseball on Apple TV. Obviously the guys are going to do it because they're getting paid, but not sure it's the right decision for the team.