The Los Angeles Dodgers–Los Angeles Angels game Tuesday night had a scary incident in the ninth inning. Angels’ star Mike Trout broke his bat hitting a single on a fastball from Dodgers’ closer Craig Kimbrel, and a piece of the broken bat flew back into home plate umpire Nate Tomlinson, going through his facemask and hitting him in the face.
Trout's broken bat got the umpire through the mask, fortunately he appears to be bleeding a in a couple spots but ok pic.twitter.com/iug8jBEy8M
— CJ Fogler account may or may not be notable (@cjzero) June 15, 2022
Dodgers’ trainer Nate Lucero examined Tomlinson and cleaned blood off his face, and Tomlinson was able to walk off the field. He was taken to an emergency room for further evaluation, while second base umpire Laz Diaz took over behind the plate. Fortunately, though, as per USA Today’s Bob Nightengale, Tomlinson wasn’t seriously injured:
Home-plate umpire Nate Tomlinson was taken to the emergency room Tuesday night after being struck in the face by Mike Trout's broken bat, with a piece flying between bars of his mask, cutting his face just above his eye and nose. He managed to avoid serious injury, his crew says.
— Bob Nightengale (@BNightengale) June 15, 2022
After the game, Dodgers’ manager Dave Roberts discussed the incident. Here’s what he said, via The Athletic:
“In the mask, the broken part of the bat, that was really scary. I heard that it hit his nose. And so that’s, I guess, the best-case scenario. A very scary moment.”
It’s fortunate indeed that Tomlinson didn’t wind up with a serious injury here. As per MLB.com, Kimbrel’s pitch was clocked at 96.4 miles per hour, so that broken bat came back at Tomlinson with a lot of velocity. And this easily could have been much worse.
[USA Today, The Athletic; photo from Gary A. Vasquez/USA Today Sports]
