There have been weird plays throughout baseball history, and what happened between the Cleveland Guardians and Minnesota Twins on Wednesday afternoon was certainly a doozy.
In the top of the ninth, Cleveland scored the tying run on a Jhoan Duran wild pitch -- except it looks like it should have been a strikeout instead.
Duran's pitch was nowhere near the strikezone, but Bo Naylor appeared to complete the act of swinging the bat while leaping out of the way. The Twins challeneged the ruling on the field that Naylor wasn't hit by the pitch, something that would have kept the tying run at third.
Something that propmted the review was the fact that Naylor started toward first base and got about halfway down the line before turning around. He probably wasn't going to first thinking he was hit, rather he was heading that way because he thought it was a dropped third strike.
Cleveland gets a gift.
— Puckett's Pond (@PuckettsPond) August 30, 2023
That’s 100 percent a swing from Bo Naylor on Duran’s wild pitch. Should have been strike three and the end of the game. pic.twitter.com/QKKtf3gXwE
That's a swing, no matter how you try to defend it.
Naylor might have been trying to get out of the way, but it seems pretty clear that he's in the act of swinging the bat -- or at least the motion has begun and carries through the zone.
Duran reacted to the replay while on the mound seemingly to indicate that he also thought Naylor had swung. It became pretty apparent that while the Twins were wrong about whether Naylor was hit, he should have been ruled out for swinging at the wild pitch.
That didn't happen, though, as Minnesota lost the challenge and the game went to extra innings a half inning later.
Inexcusable to miss that swing. It’s a weird play but it’s blatantly obviously and the umps are paid too much money to miss that.
— Twins Central (@TwinsCentral1) August 30, 2023
Making matters worse, the Twins surrendered a three-run home run in the top of the tenth inning to give Cleveland a 5-2 lead. It's without a doubt one of the most baffling and frustrating losses of the season.
The good news is Minnesota remains five games up on a pretty weak Guardians team that seems to be flailing in its last moments of actual contention rather than starting some sort of September comeback.