Miami Marlins slugger Giancarlo Stanton cannot avoid getting hurt by his own team. Over the winter, he expressed supreme displeasure when half the Marlins' starting lineup was traded away in a massive salary dump. On Wednesday, the Marlins hurt Stanton in a much more literal manner.
During a simulated game at the team's spring training complex Wednesday, Stanton was hit in the head by a pitch from Jose Fernandez, the team's first pick in the 2011 draft. A Marlins beat reporter happened to be recording Stanton's at bat, and posted the video to YouTube (embedded below).
Stanton left the game after the beaning, but he told The Miami Herald that he does not expect to miss significant playing time as a result. "I wasn't dizzy or nothing," he told the Herald. "I saw a little grayness, fuzziness on the outside of my eyes but it's subsiding now."
"It hit me first and the helmet decided to come in after the impact – right in the bottom of the head, high neck area." Stanton was examined by team trainer Mike Kouzak after the pitch, but he was able to sign autographs for fans, according to the Herald.
Manager Mike Redmond said the team sent Stanton to have X-rays taken on his neck as a precaution.
Fernandez told the Herald he felt bad about the pitch. "It's a scary moment," he said after estimating the pitch was faster than 95 miles per hour. "When I let it go, I felt I didn't have control over it coming out of my hand. It could have gone to the other side. It went to the wrong side."
Fernandez jogged to Stanton to apologize after the pitch, but Stanton said there were no hard feelings.
"When I asked him how he's doing, he laughed," Fernandez said. "He said he is fine. I told him, I'm sorry. You know, nobody is trying to hit anybody. Same team and everything. He just laughed, said, 'Bro, it's baseball. It happens.'"
Still, the incident was a perfect metaphor for Stanton's offseason. Just when he thought he had a solid team around him for the foreseeable future, his bosses dismantled the team. He reacted then as if he had been beaned in the head, tweeting "Alright, I'm pissed off!!! Plain & Simple."
It turns out he is much more magnanimous when he is actually hit in the head.
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