This was an odd moment in Tuesday night’s Rangers-Red Sox game. Red Sox outfielder Brock Holt chased a Hunter Pence opposite-field smash toward Pesky’s Pole in right. Holt misjudged the ball on the fly and failed to haul it in, and the ball caromed off the low wall and back onto the track in deep right field. Holt could’ve chased it, but instead he appeared to suffer some sort of comprehensive electrical failure and lay slumped over the wall for, well, quite a long time. Long enough, in fact, for Pence to cruise around the bases for the easiest inside-the-park home run you’ll ever see.
There’s a fair chance nothing could’ve stopped Pence from scoring once Holt blew the catch, but it’s pretty remarkable that the ball was left sitting dead still tucked up against the outfield wall whole seconds after Pence had already crossed home plate. What was Holt doing? Did the wall knock the wind out of him? Did he jam his dick and balls on the catch? Did he spot a delicious Jolly Rancher under a fan’s seat?
This was Holt’s second significant blooper in two days, the kind of thing you will chuckle at so long as you are not a Red Sox fan. Monday night he was thrown out at home by Rangers outfielder Nomar Mazara by like 25 feet, in the ninth inning of a tie game the Red Sox would go on to lose.
Might be time to shake out Holt’s old batteries and replace them with some fresh ones.