Fox last night drew a 12.8 overnight rating for the Astros' 10th-inning walk-off win over the Dodgers, marking the second-best World Series Game 5 overnight since '03 (Marlins-Yankees, 15.4). Last night's game is behind only a 15.3 overnight for last year's Cubs-Indians during that period. While Game 5 was 16% lower than the figure from '16, it was 9% higher than the series-clinching Royals-Mets Game 5 in '15 and 56% higher than Giants-Royals Game 5 in '14. Dodgers-Astros also marks the second straight year World Series Game 5 has topped NBC's "SNF" in head-to-head competition. Steelers-Lions last night drew a 9.4 overnight, which is the -second-lowest "SNF" overnight since the program began going head-to-head with the World Series starting in '10. "SNF" prior to that was on hiatus when the World Series was on a Sunday night. Both NBC and Fox, along with all other networks, were without figures last night from the Boston, Providence and Hartford markets, as inclement weather affected those areas. Houston led all markets with a 32.9 local rating. L.A. drew a 32.8 local rating, which is the market's best figure for any baseball game since Angels-Giants World Series Game 7 in '02 (42.0 rating) (Austin Karp, Assistant Managing Editor).
ON TOP OF HIS GAME: SI.com's Jimmy Traina writes Fox' Joe Buck "put on a clinic" calling last night's game. His call of Astros 2B Jose Altuve's "game-tying three-run homer in the fifth inning was as good a call as you'll ever hear," and his call of Astros 1B Yuli Gurriel's "game-tying three-run homer in the fourth inning was also a legit A+." Many people on Twitter "like to ignore the fact that Buck has become a great baseball announcer just so they can bash him," but they need to "get with the times and move on to 2017" (SI.com, 10/30).
HARD PASS: In N.Y., Phil Mushnick writes it is unclear if Fox "intentionally ignored or missed" Gurriel’s second-inning post-home run "racist mockery" of Dodgers P Yu Darvish in Game 3. But given that "what was seen on Fox quickly made disturbing news elsewhere, Fox took a pass, more likely a dive" (N.Y. POST, 10/30).
