Blue Jays player hits shortest RBI single imaginable and can only laugh
Baseball can be a funny sport.
As a hitter, you might smash a ball as hard as you can, but if you hit it to the wrong place, it won’t matter one bit. Indeed, at times, the hardest-hit ground balls make for the easiest double plays.
On the flip side, sometimes you can barely make contact with a pitch and still get a base hit.
The latter is exactly what happened in the second inning of Monday night’s game between the Toronto Blue Jays and the Minnesota Twins.
With one out and the bases loaded, Blue Jays infielder Lourdes Gurriel Jr. took a big hack at a pitch low and out of the strike zone from Twins starter Lance Lynn.
He missed rather badly, but still made the tiniest bit of contact.
Gurriel ended up hitting a dribbler down the third-base line. As the ball rolled, Twins catcher Mitch Garver watched, waiting for it to go foul.
But it never did.
And with the bases loaded, the runner on third base, Yangervis Solarte, had no choice but to take off for home, meaning that he ran right past Garver, who was simply standing over the ball.
Garver could easily have picked up the ball and tagged Solarte out, but instead opted to do nothing.
Though it might not have been a hard-hit ball, it counted for an RBI single nonetheless.
Gurriel, standing safely at first base, could only laugh at his good fortune.
Lynn, on the other hand, was the victim of a poor defensive play, though it should be noted that the predicament he found himself in was purely of his own making.
It didn’t get much better from there, as Curtis Granderson walked two batters later to make it 2-0 in favor of the Blue Jays.
Lynn ended up going just five innings. He gave up six runs on seven hits with five walks, and saw his earned run average jump to 8.37.
“It wasn’t good enough,” Lynn said after the game, according to MLB.com. “I gave up too many homers and too many walks, again. There were just some funky plays, also. Everything that could possible happen, happens. That kind of seems to be the way things are going right now. So, I’m looking forward to May, that’s for sure.”
Gurriel, one the other hand, turned in a solid performance. In addition to his RBI single, he had another base hit in the eighth inning.
The Blue Jays won the game 7-5.
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