A scary scene occurred during Thursday’s game between the Baltimore Orioles and the Tampa Bay Rays when Rays reliever Hunter Bigge was struck in the face by a foul ball and had to be carted off the field.
Bigge spent the night in a Tampa-area hospital but is expected to be okay.
Orioles catcher Adley Rutschman stepped to the plate in the seventh inning, with Rays pitcher Connor Seabold on the mound. Rutschman worked the count full before fouling off a pitch that went straight into the Rays’ dugout — with a reported exit velocity of 105.1 mph (well above what MLB qualifies as “hard hit”).
Bigge is currently on the injured list with a lat strain, so he was in the Rays’ dugout, leaning on the railing, rather than down in the bullpen. The foul ball struck him in the face and knocked him backwards. As MLB.com’s Adam Berry writes, the team’s strength and conditioning coach, Steve Chase, was “right there” to catch him.
Bigge never lost consciousness, but was still transported to a local hospital to be checked out.
It was a moment that visibly shook the players on both teams. Rustchman and Seabold’s reactions can be seen immediately on the broadcast, while most of the other Rays players in the field were equally concerned. The game was delayed several minutes while the team’s training staff attended to Bigge.
