Joe Davis loses voice, Kenny Albert calls NLDS Game 3

The news came from Andrew Marchand of The Athletic a few hours before first pitch in Atlanta, and it moved fast.

Talkin' Baseball

@TalkinBaseball_

Joe Davis has lost his voice and will not call Game 3 of Dodgers vs. Braves, per @AndrewMarchand. Kenny Albert will fill in

Albert steps into Fox's top chair next to analyst John Smoltz, with Ken Rosenthal still in the mix as reporter. Game 3 goes Tuesday at 6 p.m. ET on FS1. It's about as safe a replacement as a network gets. Albert has called just about every sport Fox carries, and he isn't learning the job on the fly in a playoff game.

The detail that makes this more than a scheduling note is who Davis is. He isn't only Fox's No. 1 baseball guy. He's also the local voice of the Dodgers on Spectrum SportsNet, and he has called the last 2 World Series on Fox while the Dodgers won both. Through Games 1 and 2, some fans complained that the national broadcast leaned a little blue.

Baseball Twitter wasted no time on that angle. Within an hour people were joking that a neutral network broadcast was now somehow a downgrade for Dodgers fans.

Alex Stumpf

@AlexJStumpf

Damn, we aren’t getting the Dodgers’ broadcast today?

Andrew Marchand@AndrewMarchand

Kenny Albert will be on the call for Game 3 and of the Dodgers vs. Braves on Fox as Joe Davis is under the weather, The Athletic has learned. I'm told Davis (who has lost his voice) is day-to-day.

It's a joke, but it lands because the complaint has been around for 2 Octobers. When one guy is both the home team's TV voice and the network's national voice, every big Dodgers call he makes gets picked apart by the other 29 fan bases. Albert has no ties to either club, so he walks in without any of that.

Foul Territory

@FoulTerritoryTV

Kenny Albert is filling in for Joe Davis tonight. Davis, who lost his voice, is feeling under the weather, per @AndrewMarchand.

What happens next is simple: Davis is day-to-day, with Game 4 and the rest of the series up in the air. The game itself is a good one to land on short notice, with the series tied 1-1 and Yoshinobu Yamamoto, the 2025 World Series hero, going against Chris Sale. Getting a voice back takes rest, and a playoff schedule doesn't give much of it. If Davis can't talk by tomorrow, Albert keeps calling this series.