Royals announcer criticized for weak calls of Twins homers on Roku broadcast

What an unfortunate day to not have Twins play-by-play announcer Cory Provus in the TV booth. A pair of thrilling Twins home runs were marred, from an entertainment standpoint, by weak calls from Royals announcer Ryan Lefebvre, who was theoretically a neutral broadcaster.

Sunday’s Twins-Royals game was exclusively aired on the Roku channel, which has carried games since the start of last season. Roku doesn’t have its own announcers, so it creates a mashup of the two teams’ broadcast crews. In this instance, that meant Lefebvre calling the game alongside Twins.TV analyst Justin Morneau and reporter Audra Martin.

In that role, the play-by-play announcer is supposed to be neutral. But Lefebvre sounded like he was doing his usual duties on the Kansas City broadcast during the Twins’ two exciting home runs in their extra-inning victory.

In the third inning, Twins infielder Ryan Fitzgerald collected his first MLB hit and his first MLB home run after nearly 3,000 plate appearances in the minor leagues. Lefebvre didn’t muster much energy on the call.

Then, in the bottom of the 11th, red-hot rookie Luke Keaschall continued his incredible run with a walk-off two-run homer to right-center. It was the second career homer and first walkoff for Keaschall, who has gotten off to a historic 12-game start to his MLB career. Lefebvre hardly brought any juice to that call, either.

On almost any other day, it would’ve been Provus in the booth for the Twins’ home broadcast, and fans would’ve gotten a couple electric home run calls from one of the best announcers in the business. That would’ve added some extra excitement to the biggest highlights of Fitzgerald and Keaschall’s careers thus far.

But even with the game not being on Twins.TV, the calls didn’t have to be as flat as they were. Provus has called Roku games before and brought energy to his calls of big moments for the Twins’ opponent.

Numerous people took to social media to criticize the calls.

To be clear, Lefebvre is widely regarded as an excellent play-by-play announcer for the Royals. He’s been doing it since 2008 and is very good at his job. But the former University of Minnesota baseball player, who briefly called Twins games in the late 1990s, didn’t rise to the occasion the way he should’ve on Sunday. Fitzgerald and Keaschall deserved better.

Provus will be back in the booth when the Twins begin a series at Yankee Stadium on Monday.