Part of your job as a closer is to remain calm even under the immense pressure of late-inning baseball. You’ll often have to enter games where one swing of the bat could swing a potential win into a loss. When Ken Giles entered Tuesday’s game against the New York Yankees it wasn’t technically a save situation, but it was intense nonetheless.
Giles entered a 0-0 ball game trying to preserve the goose egg long enough for his team to get back into the batter’s box and win it. Unfortunately for Giles the Yankees had other plans. After recording 19 straight outs in previous appearances, four out of five batters he faced reached base on Tuesday. This led to four runs, including a three-run homer from catcher Gary Sanchez.
Giles only managed to record one out before getting yanked. This led to an ugly 108.00 ERA and 12.00 WHIP on the night. Understandably upset, Giles surprised television audiences when he literally wound up and socked himself in the face. It wasn’t any self-motivating love tap either, it was a straight up wallop.
He went on to smash up the dugout as well, but nobody cared about that after seeing his self-inflicted haymaker.
He made more contact with his fist than the Yankees did with their bats, and that’s saying something. Anyone else reminded of their first fight against Tyler Durden?
(H/T SportsCenter)
