Michael Kay announcer jinx rears ugly head on Carlos Correa bomb vs. Yankees
It was inevitable.
![Minnesota Twins v New York Yankees](https://images2.minutemediacdn.com/image/upload/c_crop,w_3392,h_1908,x_0,y_64/c_fill,w_752,ar_16:9,f_auto,q_auto,g_auto/images/GettyImages/mmsport/43/01hzqy0n1da2fqka9ew2.jpg)
Unsurprisingly, Yankee killers Carlos Correa (7-for-14 after his first at-bat Thursday) and Christian Vázquez (.364 average) both crush Marcus Stroman. Naturally. Yankee killers kill all Yankees, even before they're Yankees.
That meant YES Network play-by-play lead Michael Kay should've been extra careful not to poke the bear before Correa's first plate appearance of Thursday's game. Unfortunately, instead of laying low, he basically started the equivalent of a, "F*** Altuve!" chant from the booth.
Tuesday's 5-1 Yankees win represented a nadir for Correa, who struck out four times in the contest. Like a meteor crashing into the Sahara, that'll only happen once a millennium or so. On Wednesday, Correa didn't fare much better, knocking in two runs with a pair of outs, but failing to record a hit.
Just before Stroman kicked and fired, Kay dared to point that out, a statement that was immediately followed by a pitch getting stomped on.
Michael Kay: "Correa so far in the series 0-for-7 with four strikeouts."
— Talkin' Yanks (@TalkinYanks) June 6, 2024
... he homered 10 seconds later lol pic.twitter.com/tI8TjglPfZ
Yankees enemy Carlos Correa homers after Michael Kay explicitly told him not to
The wildest part? It's not like this series was jinx-free prior to Kay's mistake. In fact, Yankee fans are less than 48 hours removed from Kay calling partner John Flaherty out for the exact same thing, cueing a Royce Lewis smash with his vocal cords alone.
Flaherty has long been a master of the announcer jinx, with his inner-circle flub coming last summer in Colorado when he borderline taunted light-hitting Rockies infielder Alan Trejo to homer (followed instantaneously by a walk-off before the echo of Flaherty's sentence had even wrapped). It seems Kay is merely learning from the master, who was born into it.
Next time Correa (or Altuve, or George Springer, or Kyle Tucker) steps to the plate, we hope Kay practices what he preaches and lays low. Hell, he should maybe even lie about Correa's stats and pretend he's already been tearing it up all series long. Maybe he can lure Correa into a false sense of bravado and get him to slip up and feel bad for the Yankees for a few seconds.
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