Someone threw a ball onto the field in Cleveland tonight at the same moment Yan Gomes had just slapped the real, live, ball against the wall in right field. Jay Bruce fielded the true ball and threw it to the cutoff man, but the imposter ball was already making its way to the infield.
In the video below you can see someone in the Cincy bullpen throw a ball that disappears, only to reappear seconds later, heading for the field. The bullpen catcher tried to grab it but it was too high.
Everyone had to take a minute to figure out what just happened and David Murphy took the brunt of it. Gomes was in safe at second, but with his back likely turned on most of the play as he went in to third base, Murphy saw the dummy ball trickling behind second base and thought it was the ball. He got too far off the bag, trying to gauge whether he could go anywhere on the not-actually-loose ball and got nailed.
[MLB]