Phillies-Giants: Game time, how to watch and stream ESPN’s ‘Sunday Night Baseball’

After losing to the Giants yet again on Saturday afternoon, the Phillies find themselves in fourth place in the division looking up at the once-lowly Mets.

In other words, the perfect time for a nationally televised game.

The Phillies will face off against the Giants in the final game of a four-game series Sunday night on ESPN’s Sunday Night Baseball. The country certainly won’t be catching the Phillies at their best, losers of seven of their last 11 games and 27-35 since May 29, when they led the NL East by 3 1/2 games.

In the booth for ESPN will be play-by-play announcer Matt Vasgersian and analysts Alex Rodriguez and Jessica Mendoza. Buster Olney will handle reporting duties during the game.

Considering the game is in San Francisco, it’s unlikely Rodriguez or Vasgersian will repeat the same mistakes they made when calling a Phillies game back in March at Citizens Bank Park, when both were widely mocked for trying to sound like Philadelphians while downing cheesesteaks on air.

ESPN’s has received its fair share of criticism from sports media pundits and columnists over this season’s Sunday Night Baseball telecasts, particularly for focusing too much on the broadcasters themselves and not enough on the games being played.

“Everyone in the stadium and watching on TV will most definitely know A-Rod and ESPN are doing the game. This has long been the issue with ESPN game broadcasts at their worst — you really know they are doing the game,” New York Post sports media columnist Andrew Marchand (a former ESPN employee) wrote last month.

But it’s just the second year on ESPN’s marquee baseball property for both Rodriguez and Mendoza, and Rodriguez has called fewer than 50 games total over the course of his career, as Vasgersian pointed out in a recent interview with The Athletic.

“It’s just too easy for people sitting on their couch to judge,” Vasgersian said, adding that the “spectacle element” of Sunday Night Baseball is something the network enjoys.

“For obvious reasons. It brings eyeballs,” Vasgersian said. “And I think most broadcast executives would say the same thing: We’d rather have something that people feel strongly about — good or sometimes bad — than have something that people are just, meh, who cares.”

When: Sunday, August 11

Where: Oracle Park, San Francisco

Time: 7 p.m.

TV: ESPN (Matt Vasgersian, Alex Rodriguez, Jessica Mendoza)

Radio: 94.1 WIP (Scott Franzke, Kevin Frandsen)

Spanish: WTTM-AM 1680 (Bill Kulik, Angel Castillo)

Streaming: ESPN app (requires cable authentication), YouTube TV, Hulu + Live TV, FuboTV, PlayStation Vue (all require a subscription), MLB TV (outside Philadelphia market, requires a subscription)

Starting Pitchers: Jake Arrieta, Phillies (8-8) versus Conner Menez, Giants (0-1)

As with every Phillies game, staff writers Matt Breen, Scott Lauber, and Bob Brookover will be covering all the action live on Twitter. Notes and observations about the game will be at philly.com/phillies and in our Extra Innings newsletter.

Coverage on ESPN begins at 6 p.m. with Sunday Night Countdown, hosted by Karl Ravech alongside former New York Yankees slugger Mark Teixeira and analyst Tim Kurkjian.