Vince Velasquez Gets Drilled In Pitching Arm With Line Drive, Drops Glove, Picks Up Ball With His Non-Throwing Arm, Records The Out At First

Very clear frontrunner for the play of the year in the MLB, and we’re deep enough into the season where that actually means something. Plenty of home runs get robbed. Plenty of diving stops and full extension catches happen on a weekly basis. I can’t remember the last time someone tossed their glove to the ground, planted their feet and threw a dart with their off-hand because their natural throwing arm just got rocked by a line drive.

According to the Phillies play-by-play man Tom McCarthy, Velasquez is actually ambidextrous which explains why this throw looked as natural as it did, but that takes away zero from this play. You hit me with a line drive off any part of my body and the last thing on my mind is to go hunt down that ball and throw it with my opposite hand to attempt to record the out. Fuck that. My first reaction is to roll around on the ground writhing in pain waiting for the trainers to administer me some sweet sweet narcotics to take the pain away. This was pure grit and determination from VV, I don’t know if Phillies fans call him VV but that’s what’s happening here today. He waited to make the play before he hit the deck and was promptly removed from the game with a forearm bone bruise. And again, don’t blame him. You take a rocket off your pitching arm like that you shouldn’t be asked to do anything the rest of the week. I’d still be on the ground if an Adam Eaton comebacker laced me square in the arm. Really anywhere on my physical being I’m struck by a baseball coursing through the air and I’m making the grounds crew roll the tarp over my lifeless corpse and keeping me there overnight and seeing if I survive.

Someone get Velasquez all of the beers in Philadelphia, and have someone else pour them down his gullet, too. His arms should be out of commission until he sees fit.