Yankees: Darren O’Day strikes out Pirates batter on ball that hit him in junk
![Feb 24, 2021; Bradenton, Florida, USA; Pittsburgh Pirates catcher Tony Wolters (93) has some fun while taking batting practice during spring training at Pirate City. Mandatory Credit: Jonathan Dyer-USA TODAY Sports](https://images2.minutemediacdn.com/image/upload/c_fill,w_752,ar_16:9,f_auto,q_auto,g_auto/shape/cover/sport/https-3A-2F-2Fyanksgoyard-com-2Fwp-content-2Fuploads-2Fimagn-images-2F2021-2F03-2F15622856-850x560-cae25567fd4d828e92ec557aa8977895.jpg)
Pirates catcher Tony Wolters had one of those terrible, horrible, no good, very bad days against Yankees side-armer Darren O’Day on Saturday.
In fact, he experienced the platonic ideal of the kind of moment that made many of us give up youth baseball a long time ago.
It looks ridiculous, but sometimes a pitch has such nasty movement that it ends up nicking your body on the inside corner mid-swing, and you end up whiffing on what should’ve been a free base.
And sometimes, the pitch doesn’t just nick you, but instead hits you squarely in the johnson.
Having just seen his teammate rip a home run off one of O’Day’s moonballs, Wolters loaded all the way up and took a hefty cut at a 2-2 pitch boring in on his hands.
Only his hands didn’t catch the brunt of the pitch’s impact. Instead, his nether regions had to welcome an additional ball to the mix.
Tony Wolters strikes out AND gets hit by the pitch 😬https://t.co/zWJSBLMjhT
— 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐒𝐩𝐨𝐫𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐍𝐞𝐰𝐬 (@sportingnews) March 13, 2021
Presented by Manscaped!
Yankees reliever Darren O’Day struck a batter out AND drilled him in his family jewels.
Is there anything more humiliating than whiffing on a pitch that drilled you…there? Getting posterized by a tween dunking a deflated basketball? Getting mossed in the end zone, only to see the football also hit you in the crotch?
O’Day was asked about this magic moment in his postgame media scrum, and let’s just say that it slightly overshadowed the impact of the solo homer he allowed.
Or the final score.
Or, really, any other moment from this sleepy mid-spring contest.
O’Day expressed sympathy for the gladiator on the other side of the arena, but acknowledged he wasn’t necessarily upset about ending the inning with a flourish.
Darren O'Day on his strikeout that also hit Tony Wolters close to ~his area~:
— Max Goodman (@MaxTGoodman) March 13, 2021
"I was happy because I got the strikeout ... It's a hard game, it really is."
Could Adam Ottavino have done that? Yeah, technically. Sure. His breaker’s got bite.
But there’s something about the Darren O’Day Experience where you enter every inning just, like, accepting that his fastball might run so far in that it fools a hitter while it strikes his privates.
Pretty fun experience, all things considered.