Ohhh baseball, you beautiful, unpredictable, occasionally slapstick gem. We’re barely a week into the MLB season and already we’ve got a leading candidate for ““Funniest Moment of the Year””—and it comes courtesy of a play that feels like it was written by a comedy writer moonlighting as a catcher.
“Picture this”: Angels shortstop “Nicky Lopez” is at the plate, down 0-2, locked in for the next pitch from “Sonny Gray”. Gray delivers, it’s a strike, and that’s where the chaos begins.
Cardinals catcher “Ivan Herrera”, doing what catchers do, casually goes to toss the ball back to the mound. But instead of a clean throw, he clips “Lopez’s bat”, which rebounds and “smacks Lopez in the helmet”—a ricochet right out of a blooper reel.
Helmet flies. Lopez steps out of the box, stunned. The commentary team? Cracking up. Viewers? Rewinding the clip like it’s the Zapruder film of dugout humor.
But the baseball gods weren’t done with Lopez. Three pitches later, he strikes out swinging and heads back to the dugout with an 0-for-4 performance for the day. Rough. Real rough.
And while Lopez was seeing stars, “Herrera was becoming one”. The Cardinals catcher—yes, “the same guy who accidentally headshot his opponent with his bat”—went on an “absolute tear”, “hitting three home runs” in the fourth, sixth, and eighth innings.
Just casually having one of the best games of his life while also unintentionally starring in a viral clip that’ll be played on loop until October.
The Cardinals rolled to a “12-5 win” over the Angels, and Herrera’s name is now etched into the early-season highlight reel—for power “and” comedy.
Baseball has a way of mixing the absurd with the amazing, and this one had both in spades. From a bat-to-the-head blooper to a home run hat trick, we witnessed a full game’s worth of theater—and it’s only April.
