St. Louis Cardinals starter Lance Lynn experienced a pitcher's nightmare scenario in Thursday night's game against the Kansas City Royals.
He threw a pitch, and then it came screaming back at him, aimed for his head. Not only did Lynn seem fine after the hit on the head, he stayed in the game and kept pitching like nothing had ever happened.
The comebacker came in the third inning. Lynn was pitching to Lorenzo Cain, and on the 1-2 pitch Cain took a mighty rip that sent the ball right at Lynn. It's hard to tell from the video whether the pitcher saw it coming because he had his head turned toward the first base side, but either way the ball got him on the right side of his head. When the ball hit him, Lynn spun around and his hat flew off.
Lynn got right back up, completely unfazed. The ball had ricocheted off his head and sailed toward right-center field, where Dexter Fowler picked it up.
Manager Mike Matheny and Cardinals trainer Adam Olsen ran out to the mound to see how he was. But Lynn wasn't having any of it.
"Go back to the dugout where you belong," Lynn recalled telling Matheny and Olsen.
When they reminded Lynn that it was their job to check on his welfare, the right-hander had a quick reply.
"I'm trying to do mine," he said. "Get off the mound."
Lynn allowed two runs after the knock off his head, both in the fifth inning. Those runs came from a single, a walk and a triple, but Lynn went back out and pitched a scoreless sixth to wrap up his 24th start of the year.
Lynn gave an interview with Fox Sports Midwest afterward and revealed just how he managed to persuade Matheny and Olsen to leave him in the game.
"I stared back in their soul and told them to go the dugout."
He then added another gem, saying second baseman Kolten Wong should have made the play.
"I thought it should've been caught. Where's Kolten at on the ricochet?"
So Lynn was in great spirits after the game, which ended up being the Cardinals' sixth consecutive victory. He also revealed how he managed to avoid a serious injury from the screaming baseball -- his hat. He insisted that his regular old baseball hat absorbed most of the blow.
Worth celebrating
Texas Rangers third baseman Adrian Beltre was booted from a game in July because umpire Gerry Davis didn't like where the 38-year-old was standing while on deck and waiting for his at-bat.
When Davis told Beltre to move to the on-deck circle, Beltre instead dragged the circle to where he was standing, and Davis ejected him.
The Rangers plan to commemorate that moment with a giveaway.
As explained by Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News, the Rangers will offer miniature "on-deck circle" mouse pads to the first 15,000 fans who make it to Globe Life Park in Arlington ahead of the team's contest against the New York Yankees on Sept. 9.
The promotion is part of a two-day celebration of Beltre, who reached 3,000 career hits a few days after that ejection.
No word on whether Davis will receive a mouse pad of his own from the club.
QUIZ
Where did St. Louis Cardinals starting pitcher Lance Lynn play collegiately?
ANSWER
The University of Mississippi.
Sports on 08/12/2017