BALTIMORE -- Jesús Sánchez’s manager likens the jovial outfielder to “The Most Interesting Man in the World” of the decades-old beer ad campaign.
But even Sánchez isn’t so eccentric that he actually intended to play catch with spectators during a mound visit amid Toronto’s 9-5 loss to the Orioles on Sunday afternoon at Camden Yards.
Yet that’s how a pre-teen fan among the announced crowd of 34,476 on the Orioles’ Youth Sports Day interpreted the right fielder’s sixth-inning banter, launching a ball in his direction after he had turned back toward the infield. That set off one of the more unusual injury sequences in recent memory, ending with Sánchez leaving the field with a bruised right wrist.
“You can see him in the box, he loves playing the game, he loves having fun,” manager John Schneider said of the 28-year-old native of the Dominican Republic. “So I think that can, kind of, be misunderstood at times. And I’m sure the kid feels bad. I’m assuming there’s no ill intent there. Just yeah, ball coming on the field during the inning, it’s something that shouldn’t happen.”
The ball struck Sánchez, who discarded his glove, bent over and clutched at his wrist while the mound conference with reliever Hayden Juenger -- who was making his MLB debut -- continued. Blue Jays head athletic trainer Jose Ministral and other team personnel came out to visit, and after consultation, appeared to motion that they believed Sánchez would have trouble gripping a bat.
“He kind of just had trouble squeezing Jose's hand, and we wanted to get him out of there,” Schneider said.
Sánchez had a small bandage on his wrist postgame after undergoing X-rays that were negative. And like his manager, he did not believe there was any malice in the young fan’s action.
“It's just that there was a misunderstanding, a bad confusion,” Sánchez said through an interpreter. “Where I raised my glove, they believed that I was asking for the ball. But it was never like that.”
In the aftermath, the fan appeared to be escorted out of the seating area with an accompanying adult by law enforcement.
"We have identified the fan and removed them from the ballpark while we conduct a thorough investigation,” the Orioles said in a statement.
After Toronto’s 17th game in as many days, an off-day Monday could give Sánchez time to recover and avoid a potential stint on the 10-day injured list.
“It hurts a little bit,” he said. “Thank God there’s nothing, no fracture or something like that. I’ll be all right.”
He’s currently slashing .287/.324./.461, and he had an RBI double in Saturday’s 6-5 defeat.
“It was a big surprise, of course,” Sánchez said. "I wasn’t imagining that it was going to happen. But I mean, it happened. Just turn the page and let’s keep going on.”
And on Sunday, his replacement Yohendrick Piñango contributed an interesting footnote to Camden Yards history by hitting the 136th homer in the ballpark’s lifespan to land on Eutaw Street, and arguably the one hit under the strangest circumstances.
Those were the talking points on a day when the on-field competition was not particularly compelling for Blue Jays fans.
Rookie Spencer Miles (2-1) lasted only three innings and allowed six runs on a career-high 70 pitches. Juenger allowed three more in an inning of work in his MLB debut a day after his selection from Triple-A Buffalo, part of five innings covered by a bullpen that entered the day as the AL’s second-most-worked relief group.
Toronto scored five runs after the sixth for the second time in three days, propelled by Piñango’s drive, Ernie Clement’s double and Charles McAdoo’s run-producing groundout.
This time the deficit was too large to overcome in a second consecutive defeat that followed a four-game win streak. The Blue Jays finished 10-7 in their 17-game stretch.
“It was kind of a mixed bag here these last four games here in Baltimore, for sure, in all areas,” Schneider said. “But I think at 10-7, I think that we took a step forward collectively over that period of time.”