Every big-league stadium has different dimensions and spacing within foul territory. You have a stadium like Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum, which has a ridiculous amount of space in foul territory and an on-deck circle far from home plate.
The opposite is the case at Minnesota’s Target Field, and Christian Vazquez nearly paid the price on Wednesday.
With Twins infielder Donovan Solano at the plate in the third inning, Vazquez was taking cuts in the on-deck circle when a line drive foul off Solano’s bat went sailing right towards Vazquez’s face. The entire stadium gasped as they heard the connection, but to a huge relief: Vazquez was perfectly fine.
Christian Vázquez took a foul ball to the helmet while in the on-deck circle 😳 pic.twitter.com/qLvkUSfM8M
— Jomboy Media (@JomboyMedia) August 16, 2023
Replays would show that the ball caught the bill of Vazquez’s helmet, missing his face by mere centimeters. Even Vazquez seemed surprised to escape the ordeal unscathed as he checked the helmet and laughed off what could have been incredibly painful.
It’s almost surprising that we don’t see these incidents happen more often, particularly at Target Field, which has an on-deck circle close to home plate. Though players do like to stand closer to the plate while on deck to time up the pitcher, it did look like Vazquez was more or less in the actual on-deck circle. You can see weighted bats and warm-up equipment right near where he was standing.
That’s a scary spot to be in with a right-handed batter at the plate. But there’s only so much MLB can do when some stadiums don’t have the physical space to move an on-deck circle.
Vazquez would fly out in his at-bat that inning, which had to be a lot better than a baseball to the face.