The Detroit Tigers’ announcing crew got a little carried away when talking about Olivia Dunne ahead of her boyfriend Paul Skenes’ start on Wednesday.
Bally Sports Detroit ran a graphic comparing the social media followings of what they called “Gen Z’s New Power Couple” before Game 1 of a doubleheader against the Pirates, and things got awkward when broadcaster Johnny Kane looked down at his phone mid-segment.
“What’s going on there man? Are you looking up Livvy Dunne?” Bally’s in-game reporter Trevor Thompson asked.
“She just gained one more follower,” Carlos Pena, an analyst for the network, said with a laugh.
“… You’re gonna follow her on all the socials, Johnny?” Thompson continued. “She’s a pretty good gymnast, a national champion gymnast at LSU.”
They didn’t stop there.
“Are you interviewing Livvy in the stands today?” Kane asked Thompson.
“If I see her I’m going to try to track her down. See if she’ll come on to Bally Sports with us. Why not right?” Thompson said with a smile.
It’s the second time in a week Dunne has been the star of a local baseball broadcast.
Last week, a young Pirates fan named Cooper gave the social media star a shoutout after SportsNet Pittsburgh’s Hannah Mears asked him what he liked about Skenes.
“His mustache and Livvy Dunne!” Cooper said, prompting laughter from Mears.
Dunne has been every bit the star that Skenes is during the flamethrowing right-hander’s first big league season – so much so, that even MLB is leaning into the couple’s popularity.
“I always say, it’s way harder to be the person in the stands watching because I’m not in control,” Dunne said in a clip on MLB’s TikTok account. “I can’t control — I don’t know how to throw a 100-mile (per hour) fastball, but it’s hard to have no control. Especially with gymnastics when you’re just watching. But I know he’s got this and I just have a lot of confidence in him.”
Skenes made his fourth career MLB start on Wednesday afternoon. He’s posted a 2.25 ERA with 21 strikeouts over 16 innings since debuting in mid-May.