When it comes to watching the Pittsburgh Pirates, Brian Meyers is batting just .031.

Meyers, who lives in York, Pennsylvania, is a cord-cutter, and the price for not having cable, enforced by Major League Baseball’s streaming rules, is that he's been able to watch only three of the 94 games his favorite team played through July 17.

"I have tried all of the internet streaming TV services but none of them provide AT&T Sportsnet for Pittsburgh," said Meyers, 30. "The only way to watch it is when the game is nationally televised on ESPN."

Meyers subscribes to the league's streaming service, MLB.tv, but all Pirates games — home and away — are blacked out in his area. He’s not alone: Pirates games are blacked out from western Ohio through most of Pennsylvania, and from the shores of Lake Ontario, including a sliver of upstate New York, through almost all of West Virginia.

The streaming television revolution was supposed to usher in an era where viewers would pay less and watch only the programs they wanted. But while it's worked out well for “Game of Thrones” watchers, cord-cutting sports fans such as Meyers say that Major League Baseball's complicated streaming rules have left them stranded at third base.

MLB.tv charges fans $119 a year to watch games, no cable subscription required. The catch: In addition to a select group of national broadcast games that are blacked out across the service, viewers aren't allowed to stream games from any team within their local broadcast market.

And those "local" markets are large: Each team’s blackout region crosses from the home state stadium into at least two other states, and, on average, spans a total of five states. The Seattle Mariners have the distinction of being the team with the largest blacked-out market, with enough land to fill the country of South Africa: more than 560,000 square miles covering parts or all of seven states, including North Dakota and Alaska.