I wasn’t able to get to it live during the game, and now there’s another game bearing down on us in an hour, but the play was just so crazy that I thought it was still worth sharing.
Leading off the 6th inning last night, Nico Hoerner hit a dribbler to the left side for an infield single, but for some reason it looked like he was in pain in the process. Not like horrible, injury pain, but just like the contact hurt.
Upon closer inspection, and a challenge from the Phillies, it was because the pitch didn’t hit Hoerner’s bat – it hit his hand. But it wasn’t a hit by pitch, because it came on a swing. Even though his hand was holding the bat at the time. More than that, the ball went off his hand, down to the ground, BETWEEN HIS LEGS, into the batter’s box, slightly foul, then spinning into fair territory on the bounce, and ultimately dribbling to what WOULD have been an infield single.
Truly a weird, weird play, and worth watching if you didn’t see it last night: