The Washington Nationals are alone at the bottom of the National League, and it’s easy to see why. They make mistakes that simply would never happen to good teams.
But hey, at least some of those errors offer comedic value. We certainly saw that on Monday night.
With the score tied in the fifth inning against the Mariners, Teoscar Hernandez hit a hard grounder that ricochetted off the foot of pitcher Cory Abbott and went towards Dominic Smith at first base. Smith went to retrieve the ball with his bare hand, and then it got real weird. Smith tossed the ball to an empty first base as if he expected Abbott to be covering the bag. But he was facing Abbott. Like, he had to know the bag was empty.
A very nifty throw to no one pic.twitter.com/vjHfTWNILn
— Talkin’ Baseball (@TalkinBaseball_) June 27, 2023
Since nobody was around to catch that toss, Hernandez advanced to second on the throwing error. He would later score in the inning, and the Mariners went on to win, 8-4.
As far as errors go, you won’t see many funnier mistakes this season. The throw itself wasn’t bad, but Smith had to know that first base was empty. Who did he think was going to be there?
You can’t blame MLB fans for making plenty of jokes about the blunder.