Hardly a week ago, rookie Cooper Pratt was pulled from a game for not running hard. On Tuesday, the Milwaukee Brewers’ shortstop was running at full speed when a routine pop-up turned frightening at Wrigley Field. For the Brewers, it was certainly a trip down memory lane.
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The Brewers turned the game on its head in the top of the sixth, going from trailing 3-1 to taking a 5-3 lead. But the bottom of the same inning suddenly created a scary scenario.
Reliever JoJo Romero took the mound, and Chicago Cubs first baseman Michael Busch hit a routine pop-up on the very first pitch. Soon enough, the ball drifted toward the no-man’s-land to the left, and Brewers left fielder Jackson Chourio, infielders Cooper Pratt, and Joey Ortiz all went after it.
Apparently, none of them called for it.
“Scary three-way collision in the Brewers outfield,” Jomboy Media captioned the clip on X.
All three were running toward the same spot, their eyes glued to the ball. While there are official rules to prevent home plate collisions between a baserunner and catcher or fielder, nothing of that sort is there for the outfield when defensive players are tracking a ball. Even though unwritten traditions entail that the center fielder has the absolute right-of-way and priority on any fly ball they can reach, as they face the entire field, here, that should’ve applied to Chourio. Or they could’ve at least communicated something like ‘I got it’ to prevent the accident.
Given that they weren’t aware of each other’s positions, by the time they realized what was happening, it was a little too late.
Pratt went down first with his hand extended, hoping to glove the ball, but he was a bit far from it.
Chourio was somehow able to maneuver around both Pratt and Ortiz, stumbling on them. As he moved away, it appeared that his left leg made solid contact with Pratt’s left hand, with Pratt already on the ground.
Ortiz was the closest to making the catch, but the ball just grazed his glove and dropped between the three players.
The third baseman then lost his balance and stumbled into Pratt, with his knee going straight into the back of the SS.
While the chaos lasted for 3-4 seconds, including them running toward the no-man’s land and the entire ballpark getting way too excited by the scene, Busch completed his double, and Nico Hoerner reached third. But the Brewers had much bigger concerns.
They were potentially looking at adding as many as three players to the injured list.
Multiple athletic trainers rushed to the outfield.
Chourio seemed alright immediately, but Ortiz remained on one knee for a while. And Pratt was walking with pain visible on his face. He was trying to walk it off.
“I think everyone wanted it, which is a good thing,” Ortiz noted. “Playing here, it can get loud, and you don’t hear anything. … ‘Coop’ looked like he was hurting pretty bad. Making sure he stays on the field is pretty important, so it was good that everyone was all right. Hopefully we won’t do that again.”
The team breathed a sigh of relief after the initial checks. All three players were able to continue, but the incident certainly brought back a few memories.
Collisions aren’t new for Brewers
Back in 2014, LF Ryan Braun and CF Carlos Gomez had a violent collision in the outfield.
Both were tracking a shallow fly ball during a game against the Colorado Rockies. Gomez suffered a severe neck strain and exited the field in visible pain.
Just about a year later, left fielder Elián Herrera and left fielder Shane Peterson had another terrifying collision during a Cincinnati Reds matchup.
The sluggers bumped into each other at full speed. Peterson suffered a bruised knee and lacerations from Herrera’s cleats. But the latter had it much worse.
Herrera suffered a much deeper thigh bruise and had to leave the game in an ambulance.
During August 2018, RF Eric Thames had a similar incident.
He caught a line drive off a St. Louis Cardinals batter and immediately collided with Lorenzo Cain in center field. Both remained motionless for a while before they could continue, but Thames had to leave the game after a few innings due to a sore left knee.
The three-way collision from Tuesday was much less brutal for the Milwaukee Brewers fielders, but the chaos allowed the runners into scoring position. And the Cubs added another run to reduce the gap.
However, it didn’t cause much trouble for the NL Central leaders, who made it 7-4 in the very next inning. The Cubs, on the other hand, couldn’t recover.
They surrendered more runs in the eighth, and Milwaukee eventually won 9-4 to level the series.
The Brewers are currently the best team in the National League (86-53), with Chicago 5.0 games ahead (78-61) in the Wild Card race. The divisional rivals will have two more games to settle it between themselves.
For now, Milwaukee will take the win and be happy that all three players involved in the collision are fit and healthy.