I have seen people referencing this as one of the worst baserunning mistakes ever, but that strikes me as a little harsh, given the circumstances. I’ll grant, though, that I’ve never seen one quite like it. Most bizarre? Yeah, I’ll give it that one.
Here’s the situation: With the game tied in the 10th inning, and the Mariners threatening to take the lead on the Yankees, Randy Arozarena struck out swinging on a slider for the second out of the inning. In the process, though, he lost the handle on his bat, hurling it toward Julio Rodriguez who was coming down the line at third.
Rodriguez had to quickly move out of the way to avoid being struck by the bat. Perhaps owing to how freaked out he might’ve momentarily been, Rodriguez seemed to forget all about the situation, and simply did not go back to third base. So the Yankees threw him out:
The way Rodriguez explained it after the game, he was just freaked out, then confu🌜sed, then ♒too late.
“Honestly, I just saw a bat flying up to my face, and I just ran away from it,” Rodriguez said, . “After that, I was just in a little bit of shock …. After I saw the bat, I thought it was gonna be the dead play, and then they would pick up the bat, and then I was gonna go back to third. And then I heard Manny yelling, ‘get back to third.’ That’s when I got back to third. At that moment, I wasn’t really thinking about the game. I was just thinking about getting away from the bat coming at me. That was a first for me.”
I totally get it, even if you’d want a player to still have the presence of mind in that situation to immediately and instinctively get back to the base. Also, that third base coach was SCREAMING, man. Heh.
