Vladimir Guerrero Jr. hit a baseball twice on the same swing Friday night, and it turned into the RBI single that started the rally that won the game.
Here is what happened at Rogers Centre. Guerrero got an 0-2 sinker from Reds reliever Luis Mey in the seventh inning. He hit a ground ball toward the middle and shattered his bat doing it. The severed barrel then struck the baseball a few feet in front of home plate, redirecting it toward right field, where it rolled through the infield defense.
The Ball Went Where Nobody Was Standing
That is the part that makes it more than a novelty. The initial contact sent the ball one direction, and the bat barrel knocked it onto a completely different path. Cincinnati’s infield was positioned for the ball Guerrero actually hit, not the one the bat redirected.
Andres Gimenez scored from second. Toronto went on to a four-run seventh inning, took the lead, and won 6-5.
This Is Legal, and It Should Not Be Obvious
The rulebook treats a ball struck a second time by a broken bat differently than a ball struck by a bat a batter is still holding and swinging. When the bat shatters and a loose piece contacts the ball, the play stands. Guerrero got a single, and the run counted.
Double-hits like this happen a handful of times per season, and they almost always end in an out or a dead ball. Getting a run-scoring hit out of one, in the seventh inning of a one-run game, is the version nobody sees.
Luck Is Part of Winning Baseball
There is a temptation to dismiss this as a fluke that does not say anything about the Blue Jays. That is the wrong read. Good teams cash in the breaks they get, and Toronto turned a bizarre bounce into a four-run inning rather than a single and nothing.
The hit did not win the game by itself. It started the sequence, and the rest of the lineup did the work behind it. That is how teams that are playing well operate.
Guerrero Keeps Finding Ways
Nobody needs a broken bat to explain why Guerrero is valuable, and he would be the first to laugh about how this one happened. But the swing itself was a competitive one on an 0-2 count against a reliever throwing a sinker, which is the hardest situation in an at-bat.
He put the ball in play. The bat did the rest.
The Clip Deserves the Attention
Baseball produces a few real oddities a season, and most of them are meaningless. This one changed a game. Toronto won 6-5, and the winning rally started with a piece of broken maple hitting a baseball into right field.
Watch it twice. The second time you will see the barrel make contact.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.