There are bad throws and there are baaaaaaaaaaad throws.
And on Friday night, in Double-A matchup between the Frisco RoughRiders (Rangers affiliate) and Corpus Christi Hooks (Astros affiliate), we were treated to the latter. Twice. Back-to-back. As in, on the same play. Naturally, it turned a would-be single to left field into a Little League home run.
I don’t think I can ever remember seeing two throws this bad back-to-back.
https://twitter.com/RidersBaseball/status/1527802303671152640?s=20&t=bAZqTXkpAqayJDCYSaYGNA
The first offender is Hooks’ left fielder Wilyer Abreu, who made a series of errors, including turning his entire back to the field on a ground ball to left before uncorking an absolute rocket to … second base? first base? right field? I genuinely don’t know where he was aiming or why he felt that play required any sort of heroics. Just toss it in and it’s a single, my guy! Equal parts mental and physical erring on that one.
But then the play gets even more absurd, as the first baseman, Luke Berryhill, saw the runner approaching third base and thought to himself … I can do it. I can throw him out from the right field wall, even though he’s basically already sliding into the bag. Instead of the third baseman’s glove, Berryhill missed the stands by a few inches and the batter/runner Jon Ornelas raced home to score.
I hate to laugh at the expense of others, buuuuuut … these throws were pretty funny. Do you remember ever seeing two worse throws on the same play before?