Okay, there are a ton of questions related to this GIF, but we’ll try to break it down. We’re not sure if it passes the sniff test.
Nelson Cruz broke his bat in the sixth inning of Saturday night’s Rangers-Mariners game, according to GoldAndOrSmith.com. The top half of the bat wound up back in the Rangers’ dugout, the bat was passed to Yu Darvish, and for some reason, he sniffed it multiple times.
I’m no expert lip reader, but it appears that the man standing to the Japanese righty’s right asks “Doesn’t it smell?” Then there are nods all around. Do broken bats smell weird? Was this some sort of prank on Darvish? Why is the player to Darvish’s left afraid he will get stabbed with the shard end of the bat?
Whatever happened, it seemed to work. The Rangers beat the Mariners 3-1.
Check out Darvish sniffing a broken bat in the animation below.
