On Saturday, the Chicago White Sox prevailed in walk-off fashion over the Detroit Tigers thanks to a wild pitch in the bottom of the 10th (CHW 2, DET 1). That walk-off wild pitch was not the standard fare, in that didn't break wide of the catcher's mitt or bounce in front of the plate and scoot away. Instead, the wild pitch occurred after plate ump Cory Blaser took a 96.4-mph fastball from Jose Cisnero directly off the face mask. Here's a look at the deciding play:
Blaser is current under evaluation, MLB announced (per MLB.com). The league will provide updates as they become available.
While Cisnero missed his spot by a quite a bit, it still looks like a pitch that Detroit catcher Eric Haase should have at least been able to deflect with his mitt. Instead, Blaser took the full impact of the pitch and was quite understandably slow in getting up after Yoan Moncada touched the plate with the winning run. The hope of course is that Blaser wasn't seriously injured on the play and didn't suffer a concussion. The White Sox after the game tweeted out some well wishes for Blaser:
Coincidentally, all three runs in this game were scored on wild pitches.
The outcome nudges the White Sox up to 25-35 on the season, and the Tigers fall to 26-30. Detroit remains in second place in the lackluster American League Central and at this writing is four games behind the first-place Twins.
