It’s one of the scariest plays in baseball a line driver heading straight for a pitcher. That’s what happened to Toronto Blue Jays starting pitcher J.A. Happ against the Tampa Bay Rays.
With runners on second and third and one out, Desmond Jennings hit the ball right back at Happ who got struck in the head and immediately went down. The ball wound up in right field and resulted in a triple. Teammate Munenori Kawasaki immediately motioned for the cart to come out and after a 11 minutes got carted off the field in a stretcher.
Blood could be seen as well either coming from his ear or the left side of his face. Reports have indicated that he was conscious and did acknowledge the Tampa Bay crowd.
In September Brandon McCarthy pitching for the Oakland Athletics got struck in similar fashion off a line drive off the bat of Erick Aybar. The difference is that he was able to turn his head and the ball instead struck the back of his head, while Happ wasn’t able to even attempt to get out of the way.
For McCarthy he did get up on his own power, yet got diagnosed with a skull fracture that required surgery and ended his season. Hopefully for Happ the injury isn’t as severe.
Happ is now out of the hospital with a bandage on his face and on crutches as he hurt his knee when he went down. The good news is the head injury appears to not have been that severe. Will speak to the media at some point today.
Will keep up-to-date on the latest news on the Blue Jays pitcher.