Orioles' Leody Taveras suffers most embarrassing strikeout of the pitch clock era against his former team
Orioles center fielder Leody Taveras struck out on a pitch clock violation after mistakenly thinking he was walked in the bottom of the ninth.
Not all strikeouts are created equal, and nothing may exemplify that more than the punch-out Baltimore Orioles center fielder Leody Taveras endured against the Seattle Mariners.
Taveras, who played 28 games for Seattle a season ago, was Baltimore's leadoff man in the bottom of the ninth with his club trailing 4-2 at home. In a spot where he could have jump-started a comeback, he instead struck out in what very well could be the most embarrassing fashion possible of the modern era.
Sitting on a 2-2 count, Taveras took a pitch well outside and began walking to first base, thinking he had just been walked. He even began taking off his elbow guard before realizing that he had the pitch count wrong.
Unfortunately for him, that's not the most embarrassing part of the at-bat.
With the pitch clock immediately restarting after the pitch, and Taveras wasting a few precious seconds to adjust his equipment and eventually step back into the batter's box, he didn't realize the clock was ticking. This led to a full-count strikeout in the bottom of the ninth on a pitch clock violation.
Brutal is an appropriate word to describe the sequence at the dish.
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That's a mistake that simply cannot happen in that situation in a professional baseball game at any level, let alone in The Show.
The MLB pitch clock is 15 seconds when the bases are empty, which they were during Taveras' at bat, and a player must be settled in the batter's box by the eight-second mark on the clock.
While the baseball gods were clearly not on the Orioles' side during Taveras' at-bat, his teammates managed to overcome the free out and score two runs in the bottom of the frame to tie things up at 4-4.
Ultimately, the Mariners took care of business in the 10th inning and won the contest 5-4, handing Baltimore its fourth loss in a row.
Taveras finished the night with one hit and two RBI, but his lone strikeout in the game in the bottom of the ninth inning will understandably be the most memorable moment of the ballgame.
