Umpire hit by errant Washington State throw with no target in sight

The 2024 college baseball season has been officially underway for about a week now. The college game is always highly entertaining. You truly never know what’s going to happen. We got one of the funniest plays you’ll ever see on a baseball diamond on Friday evening, when Washington State was facing the Kentucky Wildcats.

The Washington State pitcher fielded the ball on a bunt and fired the ball to third base. The problem was there was nobody there but an umpire, who took a shot to the gut.

And here is that bizarre play from WSU/UK. Tough break for the ‘Cats pic.twitter.com/LNlYvNUeha https://t.co/fJleZ5XWQj

— SEC Baseball (@SECbaseball) February 23, 2024

The umpire seemed perfectly fine after the throw. It happened in the seventh inning, when Kentucky’s Ty Crittenberger bunted, which led to the Washington State pitcher throwing it to third base. The only thing that stopped the ball was the umpire’s stomach. If it hadn’t hit the umpire, Kentucky would have scored the tying run at minimum.

Washington State ended up bringing home the 6-4 victory. Kentucky made three errors and several other mistakes in the loss. They still had a chance late in the ninth inning, with the game-winning run at the plate.

Things started off nice for Kentucky, they led Washington State 1-0 in the first inning on Emilien Pitre’s RBI double with two outs. But the Cougars took a 4-1 lead after there were a couple of fly balls that UK lost in the sun.

Kentucky eventually battled back within 4-3 in the seventh inning, but they allowed two runs in the eighth inning before putting one more on the board. The Wildcats dropped to 4-1 overall on the season and Washington State improved to 4-1 overall.

WSU starting pitcher Grant Taylor held Kentucky to two hits over six innings. The Cougars had eight hits in the game, including two each from Max Hartman and Nate Swarts.

Up next, Washington State will face the Kansas Jayhawks on Saturday, before finishing the weekend against the Texas State Bobcats on Sunday. Kentucky will face Texas State on Saturday, before going up against Kansas on Sunday. All of the teams are playing in the Karbach Round Rock Classic at Dell Diamond, located in Round Rock, Texas.

The Cougars have now won two of their last three games, with their only loss of the season coming against Utah Tech. Friday’s loss was Kentucky’s first loss of the 2024 campaign. They had rattled off four straight wins, three of them coming against USC Upstate and one of them coming against Morehead State.