Giancarlo Stanton is known a lot more for having a powerful bat than for being a quality defender in the outfield. On Wednesday, during Game 1 of the American League Championship Series against the Astros (-1.5), he showed that he does have some defensive proficiency when he needs it. And in the process, he also showed he might be stronger than he thinks.
After Houston’s Yuli Gurriel launched a shot to left field, Stanton had to track back and make a difficult catch over his head. Which he did, and it was impressive. Kudos to him! But as he tried to stop his forward momentum on the back wall, Stanton accidentally broke Houston’s stadium scoreboard with his hand. (Note: Stanton is a listed 6-foot-6, 245 pounds.)
Uh, oops?
Giancarlo vs. Scoreboard
Advantage Stanton.pic.twitter.com/ymWL0pjMpz
— Yankees Videos (@snyyankees) October 20, 2022
Huh. To be fair to Stanton, that scoreboard doesn’t seem very sturdy if it can fall apart the moment a player touches it with a small modicum of force.
Let’s see an angle of the unfortunate aftermath:
lmao Stanton broke the scoreboard while making that nice running catch, Just Normal Giancarlo Stanton Things pic.twitter.com/mcXOA3UtjO
— Pinstripe Alley (@pinstripealley) October 20, 2022
Credit to Stanton and Harrison Bader for at least trying to clean up the mess. Though it didn’t seem to work entirely:
Stanton and Bader being good citizens in trying to fix the Crawford Boxes scoreboard… 😂 pic.twitter.com/X0Kh3oFahx
— Marly Rivera (@MarlyRiveraESPN) October 20, 2022
I’m not certain we’ve ever seen a baseball player so strong that they actually break a scoreboard just by accidentally pushing on it. In the case of Stanton, I’m sure he’ll still take the awesome catch if it means he’s causing other general chaos in the outfield.