Until today, the Pittsburgh Pirates had given us perhaps the most entertainingly absurd play of the 2021 MLB season back in May when Javy Baez hoodwinked them into the pantheon of baseball comedy.
Today, though, the Pirates may have been involved in a play that surpassed even that one. How did they do that? Well, for one thing: the Mets are involved. They’re still in first place in the NL East, of course, but crucially they’re also still the New York Mets.
We go to the first inning today at PNC Park:
Taijuan Walker thinks the ball is foul so he tosses it away and the Pirates end up scoring three runs on an infield dribbler
Mets manager Luis Rojas got ejected immediately as he bumped into the umpire pic.twitter.com/Clb2hNnYnw
— Jomboy Media (@JomboyMedia) July 18, 2021
That led to Mets manager Luis Rojas getting ejected immediately and then bumping the home plate umpire multiple times. That’s how the Pirates booth called it.
How about the Mets booth at SNY:
Luis Rojas has been ejected from the game after 3 runs scored on this ground ball up the third base line: pic.twitter.com/dDECsIlOpt
— SNY (@SNYtv) July 18, 2021
Hello 911? I’d like to report that the NY Mets are trying to kill me.
— Jon Stewart (@jonstewart) July 18, 2021
That’s, seriously, one of the weirdest plays you’ll see. Taijuan Walker obviously considered it to be a foul ball, (perhaps justifiably!) and then he did the “flip the ball away with the glove” motion that is objectively very cool-looking except for the 1/20,000 times that it is the funniest possible way to commit a three-run error.
The Mets booth so clearly was in shock, too. There were pretty good odds that the Pirates would be involved in two of the most ridiculous plays of the baseball season.
But the odds that they would be the benefactor of one of those plays were certainly a lot longer.
