correction
A previous version of this article used the wrong first name for the Mets’ catcher. The correct name is James McCann. The article has been corrected.
In a scene described by multiple members of the Mets as “scary,” New York’s Kevin Pillar was struck in the face Monday by a 95-mph fastball. The 32-year-old outfielder was eventually able to leave the field at Atlanta’s Truist Park under his own power, but not before ESPN’s national TV audience saw him crouched on the dirt with blood pouring down.
On Tuesday morning, the team announced Pillar has “multiple nasal fractures” and would be “meeting with a facial specialist in Atlanta to determine [the] next steps.”
The incident took place in the seventh inning, on a 1-2 count with the bases loaded, two outs and the Mets leading 1-0. The base awarded to Pillar drove in a second run, and as he left the game with a towel over his face, he was replaced as a runner by Khalil Lee.
“Right now he’s in the hospital. They’re doing a CT scan,” Mets Manager Luis Rojas said after the game, a 3-1 New York win. “Not an easy moment,” he added. “Our prayers are with KP.”
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Pillar followed that later with a tweet, “Scary moment but I’m doing fine!”
Kevin Pillar got hit in the face by a Jacob Webb fastball.
Amazingly, he walked off under his own power.
Still, a frightening scene nonetheless. pic.twitter.com/6kPINtKIYn
— Ryan Field (@RyanFieldABC) May 18, 2021The Braves reliever who threw the pitch, Jacob Webb, crouched on the mound in apparent distress as Pillar fell to his knees near home plate. The third-year pitcher was pulled from the game before facing another batter.
A seemingly shaken Webb, 27, was subsequently shown on the Braves’ bench receiving guidance from coaches Kevin Seitzer and Rick Kranitz.
“I didn’t want the kid to continue after that,” Braves Manager Brian Snitker said. “I just hope Pillar is okay. That was ugly and, everybody, keep him in your prayers.”
Snitker described the scene as “about as sickening a thing as you can see on a baseball field.” The Atlanta manager praised Pillar as a “gamer” and a “pro, the way he carries himself, how he plays the game.”
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Pillar became the second major leaguer hit in the face with a pitch in recent weeks. Philadelphia Phillies star Bryce Harper took a 97-mph fastball to the left cheek in an April 28 game against St. Louis Cardinals reliever Génesis Cabrera.
Harper subsequently announced he was okay, and Cabrera apologized. However, the Washington Nationals’ Ryan Zimmerman, a former teammate of Harper’s, took issue with what that episode said about the state of the game.
“All these guys throw 95 to 100, and half of them don’t know where it’s going or know how to pitch … and the team doesn’t really care,” Zimmerman said last month to the Sports Junkies. “They’re just trying to see if they have anything in them.”
“A couple years ago, these guys would be in Double-A or Triple-A for another year, trying to learn how to pitch, but these teams just call them up to see if they can kind of hit lightning in a bottle,” the 36-year-old first baseman continued. “If not, they send them back down. They don’t care if they hit four guys on the other team — what does it matter to them? The GM for the other team is not in the box, so he doesn’t care. It’s a different kind of game, but it is what it is, and that’s where we’re at.”
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Numbers show that, in the pursuit of strikeouts, major league pitchers are hitting batters and throwing wild pitches at an ever-increasing rate.
“We’ve brought guys up in a velocity world,” Miami Marlins Manager Don Mattingly recently said. “We got to throw harder. You got to get more spin rate. Guys are trying to get more all the time. When you do that, you’re sacrificing the accuracy of what you’re doing.”
Mets catcher James McCann, who was the runner on third base when Pillar was struck, said Monday that what happened to his teammate was “real scary.”
“Everything kind of stops for a second,” McCann said. “Standing in the box, a normal person doesn’t realize how fast that ball is coming in there and how quick you have to react. That ball looked like it was chasing him.”
Pillar was the second player who had to leave the game prematurely for the injury-riddled Mets. Starting pitcher Taijuan Walker, who pitched three scoreless innings but showed discomfort on the mound, was pulled for what the team called “left side tightness.” The 28-year-old right-hander, who has a 2.05 ERA in eight starts, said afterward that he thought he would get an MRI exam Tuesday but claimed he didn’t think it was “anything too serious.”
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Walker has been a vital contributor to the Mets in the absences of fellow starters Noah Syndergaard, who is still recovering from Tommy John surgery, and Carlos Carrasco, who suffered a hamstring tear in spring training. The team’s rotation has been ably led by ace Jacob deGrom and his MLB-best 0.68 ERA, but he has missed a pair of starts with right side discomfort. The team is also missing two veteran bullpen options, Seth Lugo (elbow) and Dellin Betances (shoulder).
Before Monday’s game, the Mets moved two more players, infielder Jeff McNeil and outfielder Michael Conforto, to the injured list after they left a loss Sunday to the Tampa Bay Rays with hamstring issues. Position players already unavailable for that game because of injuries included outfielders Brandon Nimmo and Albert Almora Jr., infielder Luis Guillorme and utility man J.D. Davis.
Pillar, who is in his first season with the Mets after stints with four other teams, had been getting more playing time with Nimmo out. Following a slow start, he began heating up in May and had batted .314, with a .340 on-base percentage and a .510 slugging percentage over his previous 14 games.
“This guy’s a warrior,” Rojas said. “He shows up every day to play hard. He got up on his feet and left.
“There was no chance I thought he was going to be able to do that after he got hit in the face. But he got up and he left, and that’s at least one positive to see in the scary moment.”
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