Javy Baez was pulled from his Detroit Tigers’ 3-1 win over the Toronto Blue Jays on Thursday after making a big mental mistake on the bases.
Baez has been struggling at the plate this season but was excited when he thought he had hit his first home run. He started to walk, thinking he had hit a home run off Blue Jays starter Chris Bassitt. Once he realized the ball wasn’t leaving the park, Baez had to start running and made it to second for a double.
leaving the box after hitting a ball that would hit the wall pic.twitter.com/rtHoMqepth
— Codify (@CodifyBaseball) April 13, 2023
Even though that was bad, it wasn’t as embarrassing as his next mistake.
Akil Baddoo was up next and flew out to center field. Baez thought there were two outs and started jogging to third as if the inning was about to end. Once he realized there was only one out, it was too late, and he got doubled off second base.
Javier Báez got a late start out of the box watching his drive to LF that hit off the top of the wall for a double. Then he apparently forgot how many outs there were on Akil Baddoo's fly out to CF, resulting in an inning-ending 8-4 double play. The baserunning mishaps continue. pic.twitter.com/JJCDKWMiGk
— Jason Beck (@beckjason) April 13, 2023
Tigers manager had a talk with Baez after that. The high-priced shortstop was then removed from the game.
Despite Baez’s mistakes, the Tigers still won the game 3-1 for just their third victory of the season. They’re now 3-9. Baez is hitting .122.
