Last week, ROOT Sports announced that they will show 12 Pittsburgh Pirates Spring Training games. On Tuesday afternoon, MLB Network announced their full Spring Training broadcast schedule and it adds another seven games to be televised. ROOT Sports only does home games, while almost all of the new games are road games. MLB Network is actually showing a total of 15 Pirates games, but eight of them are games shown on ROOT. I’ve included the full broadcast schedule between both networks below, noting which games are tape delayed. Some of the MLB Network games are from the previous day, which is also noted below.
MLB Network = MLBN
ROOT Sports = RS
2/28: Pirates @ Blue Jays 5:00 AM MLBN (Tape delayed from 2/27)
3/4: Pirates vs Red Sox 1:00 PM MLBN
3/5: Pirates @ Yankees 11:00 PM MLBN (Tape delayed from 1:00 PM)
3/6: Pirates vs Yankees 1:00 PM RS/MLBN
3/7: Pirates vs Braves 1:00 PM RS
3/8: Pirates vs Braves 2:00 AM MLBN (Tape delayed from 3/7)
3/10: Pirates vs Rays 1:00 PM RS
3/12: Pirates vs Twins 1:00 PM RS
3/15: Pirates vs Orioles 1:00 PM RS/MLBN
3/17: Pirates @ Red Sox 2:00 AM MLBN (Tape delayed from 3/16)
3/17: Pirates vs Orioles 1:00 PM RS
3/21: Pirates vs Rays 1:00 PM RS/MLBN
3/24: Pirates vs Rays 1:00 PM RS
3/25: Pirates vs Rays 6:00 AM MLBN (Tape delayed from 3/24)
3/25: Pirates vs Tigers 1:00 PM RS/MLBN
3/27: Pirates @ Phillies 6:00 AM MLBN (Tape delayed from 3/26)
3/27: Pirates vs Twins 6:00 PM RS
3/28: Pirates vs Red Sox 6:00 PM RS (This game will also start an hour late on MLB Network)
3/29: Pirates vs Phillies 1:00 PM RS
3/30: Pirates vs Phillies 6:00 AM MLBN (Tape delayed from 3/29)
4/1: Pirates @ Blue Jays 6:00 AM MLBN (Tape delayed from 3/31)
4/1: Pirates @ Blue Jays 1:00 PM MLBN
If you’re scoring at home, you’ll see that there are a total of 19 games (14 live) that will be shown, including both games that will be played in Montreal right before the regular season starts. As usual with MLB Network broadcasts, it helps to have a DVR to see most of the games. I’ll note that the game on St Patrick’s Day is listed on the ROOT Sports site as being televised, while the Pirates site doesn’t have it listed at all for any type of broadcast. Every game has radio at least, so I think that’s a mistake on Pirates.com, and I included it on the list up top.
The first televised game is now next Monday’s game, though it won’t be shown until the following morning. The first live game is March 4th. Two of the late March games are night games.