Blue Jays broadcasters left to scramble after power outage in Detroit

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For once, the power outage in a Blue Jays game didn’t involve the Toronto hitters. Hey, when you struggle as much as the Jays have at the plate for much of this season, gallows humour is fair game.

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This time, the blackout was a power failure in parts of downtown Detroit that included the Tigers home, Comerica Park.

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The outage forced the Sportsnet broadcast producers to get innovative to bring the action back across the border, an evolution that finally came back to full power for the top of the seventh inning. The on-air crew of Dan Shulman and Joe Siddall did a terrific job of calling the action through their cell phones through most of the outage while viewers tried to follow along with a bare-bones video feed through much of the game.

However, the call didn’t come without some adjustments, which allowed Shulman to put on a clinic displaying why he is one of the best play-by-play men in the game.

In the first couple innings of work in the opener of a four-game weekend series, Shulman and Siddall were several seconds ahead of the video action. Producers filled the pair in and things were much smoother under a challenging situation.

Credit to Shulman and Siddall for persevering through technical difficulties beyond Rogers’ doing.

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“I wouldn’t want to do this every night, but it’s a new experience,” Shulman said in the sixth.

No kidding.

When power was finally fully restored in the seventh, Shulman and Siddall could settle in for a more conventional broadcast.

The TV and radio crews weren’t the only ones affected by the outage as some statistical data — including the specifics of Isiah Kiner-Falefa’s third-inning home run to give the Jays a 1-0 lead in the third inning.

There was no power issue with Jays starter Kevin Gausman, however, as the righty didn’t allow a hit until the sixth inning and struck out 10 batters to that point of the game. And, yes, some power returned to their bats as well as Kiner-Falefa’s homer was complemented by a two-run shot from Daulton Varsho to give the Jays a 3-1 lead in the seventh.

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