Red Sox- Rays live TV goes off air

The first 20 minutes of Game 6 was not shown due to technical problems.

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (AP) — TBS had technical difficulties that prevented it from showing live coverage of the first 20 minutes — and the first home run — of Game 6 of the American League championship series between Boston and Tampa Bay on Saturday night.

The game started at 8:08 p.m., but the broadcast didn’t begin until 8:28 p.m., when Carlos Pena, the seventh batter of the game, walked in the bottom of the first. TBS then showed a replay of a home run by B.J. Upton, the previous batter, that put the Rays ahead 1-0.

The game was not completed in time for today’s edition. Check Vindy.com for the story.

“Two circuit breakers in our Atlanta transmission operations tripped, causing the master router and its backup — which are necessary to transmit any incoming feed outbound — to shut down,” TBS spokesman Sal Petruzzi said in a statement.

“This impacted our live feed from being distributed to any of the other networks in the Turner portfolio and caused the delay in our coverage,” Petruzzi said. “Both our primary and backup routers were impacted by this problem. We apologize to baseball fans for this mishap that caused a delay in our coverage.”

Major League Baseball spokesman Rich Levin said MLB was unaware there was a problem until the broadcast failed to come on the air. No consideration was given to delaying the start of the game because the starting pitchers already had warmed up, Levin said.

When the top of the second inning began, broadcaster Chip Caray said: “We again apologize profusely for the technical difficulties we had back in Atlanta. You haven’t missed much.”

In place of the game, TBS had televised an episode of “The Steve Harvey Show.” A crawl on the screen ran several times, saying: “We are experiencing technical difficulties.”

Tampa Bay, seeking its first World Series appearance, led the best-of-seven series 3-2 after wasting a 7-0, seventh-inning lead in Game 5 and losing 8-7 to the defending champion Red Sox.