A radio/tv audience is constantly changing. The people who were listening/watching ten minutes before may be gone, and a whole new set of people have come on. The audience that would have sat through an entire broadcast because there was nothing else to watch/ listen to went away by at least the advent of multiple channel media. Currently, people skim from game to game, not setting on one channel for any length of time.
Nevertheless, advertisers expect their content to be delivered. If a new audience has taken the place of the old audience that had ingested those commercials, then the media outlet must do something to keep them on line long enough to deliver the advertiser's message. People are going to tune in to get the score, and move on to another game. I feel the content producers delay that information long enough, then it will allow a guy like Criqui to say a short ion air commercial, or any other paid content, prior to that audience leaving. That's why you don't get the scores as quickly as you'd like, because advertisers/outlet know the audience fluidity, and do what they can to get those to delay long enough to deliver the advertising.
ND is a national brand that advertisers pay a premium to utilize. ANY broadcaster, advertiser, team knows that if advertising isn't delivered, the brand loses value, and the ad revenue goes down. I would suggest listening not to the play by play as much as how advertising is delivered through the course of the game. You'll notice the same thing I saw years ago, do what you can to keep the audience listening in a multiple channel sports delivery world.