During Wednesday’s game against the Seattle Mariners, Houston Astros star Jose Altuve hit a foul ball — in every sense of the phrase.
Altuve came to the plate in the fourth inning for an at-bat against Seattle’s Wyatt Mills. Altuve took a swing from a 1-2 offering from Mills. Altuve did get it to two balls, just not in the way he planned.
Altuve didn’t strike out. That was the good news. But given where his foul ball went, it was also the bad news.
Altuve fouls a ball straight into his groin pic.twitter.com/q3yU8CDIUJ
— zachleft (@zachleft) May 4, 2022
Altuve generated a great deal of sympathy, as one would expect.
Retiring on the spot if that’s me https://t.co/raNWglSNcX
— Alex Batts (@apbattman) May 4, 2022
That’s a 100 day-dl injury. https://t.co/vF9ZYBJWwQ
— Chris Thomasson – KIII Sports (@ChrisThomasson7) May 4, 2022
I hurt watching this https://t.co/4tCgKDUCiF
— Geoff Schwartz (@geoffschwartz) May 4, 2022
I feel like I'm now ready to move on from their cheating scandal. https://t.co/TxJWJsyuwZ
— CitadelChief (@citadelchief) May 4, 2022
But the sympathy wasn’t unanimous. Due to their cheating scandal, the Astros aren’t exactly baseball’s most popular team. Their players, particularly their stars like Altuve who were said to be prominently involved in the scandal, are particularly disliked outside of Houston.
Because of that, several fans couldn’t help but find the humor in this foul ball.
If he had a buzzer to let him know what pitch was coming, this could have been prevented. https://t.co/VaF2rSlGHZ
— Jonathan Feng (@jonfeng1) May 4, 2022
Banged right on that tiny trash can.. whoops 🤷 https://t.co/SMOz3byDAF
— PattyBomb (@KCMOjave) May 4, 2022
https://twitter.com/NSanchez12/status/1521949364381437957
1 bang for fastball
2 bangs for breaking ball
3 bangs for groin shot https://t.co/zipH3upA7G— Jessica (@abaseballchick) May 4, 2022
The record should also reflect that Altuve did stay in the game, albeit briefly.
Not only did he stay in the game, but Altuve delivered a base hit. He later moved to third on a double by Michael Brantley and scored on a sacrifice fly by Alex Bregman — showing some incredible fortitude in the process.
That was as far as he could go, though. In the top half of the fifth inning, he was pulled from the game, replaced at second base by Niko Goodrum.
While getting a hit and scoring is a silver lining, the Astros were leading 4-0 at the time of his foul ball. The run he scored ended up being only cosmetic, as Houston won 7-2. With that in mind, we’re guessing that he would have rather just struck out and headed back to the dugout. He wouldn’t have been happy with a strikeout but we doubt that he would have gone nuts.
