NEW YORK -- Saturday afternoon at Yankee Stadium, the New York Yankees and first place Oakland Athletics are playing the second game of their three-game series. The A's won Friday's series opener thanks to Tony Kemp's late home run.
There was a strange -- and briefly scary -- moment in the second inning Saturday. Yankees third baseman Gio Urshela broke his bat on a swing, and a splinter went into his eye. The A's turned the ground ball into a double play and initially it appeared Urshela simply did run hard out of the box. Then it became clear he was hurt. Here's the video:
Fortunately, Urshela was OK and able to get his eye cleaned out, and he remained in the game. He even shot an RBI single back up the middle in his next at-bat.
The Yankees have been one of the lowest scoring teams in baseball this season and they're currently without their starting first baseman (Luke Voit) and starting center fielder (Aaron Hicks). Losing Urshela, their starting third baseman, for any length of time would have taken another bite out of an offense that is already lacking.
Urshela, 29, went into Saturday's game hitting .268/.312/.433 with eight home runs in 61 games. He owns a .299/.346/.498 batting line in parts of three seasons with the Yankees.
