Kansas City Royals leadoff man Nori Aoki was nailed in the head with a baseball during his first at-bat Thursday night, but St. Louis Cardinals starter Michael Wacha wasn’t the one doing the throwing.
Instead, the hit-by-pitch came courtesy of Cardinals catcher Yadier Molina, whose toss back to Wacha was juuust a bit outside.
Aoki, as you can see, went down like a sack of bricks, but it seemed to be more out of shock than injury. After taking a minute to compose himself, he returned to the box and completed his at-bat, grounding out to shortstop for the game’s first out.
The right fielder’s second at-bat ended in a groundout, as well, but Aoki came up big in his third trip to the plate. He roped an RBI double and eventually scored in a three-run sixth inning for Kansas City, which proved to be the difference in a 3-2 Royals win.
GIF via Eye on Baseball
