Giants' rout of Pirates drew highest television rating in brief history of wild-card games

The Giants' rout of the Pirates drew the highest television rating in the brief history of baseball's wild-card games.

San Francisco's 8-0 win Wednesday on ESPN averaged a 3.6 rating despite the lopsided score. The nearly 5.6 million viewers are up 19 percent from the 4.7 million for last year's AL wild-card game on the same day, Tampa Bay's 4-0 win over Cleveland.

This is the first time ESPN televised a wild-card game. TBS aired the first five since the new round debuted in 2012.

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