To our knowledge, birds and baseball games had been able to coexist this season without incident up until May 17 when Diamondbacks pitcher Zac Gallen accidentally killed a bird with a warmup pitch.
It was a freak accident reminiscent of Randy Johnson’s bird-killing pitch in 2001. But certainly we would not see another baseball-related bird death at an MLB stadium again this season, right?! Yeah, so much for that. We couldn’t even go a week without a bird death.
During the second inning of the Cleveland Guardians’ game against the Chicago White Sox on Monday, both teams were in disbelief when a Will Brennan line-drive single seemingly struck a bird between second and third base.
For the second time in less than a week, a bird has been hit on a baseball field. pic.twitter.com/TN1GdqR7bK
— Cleveland Guardians (@CleGuardians) May 22, 2023
The players on the field didn’t know how to react, and it was difficult to see the bird get struck on the initial replay. But we could see a very dead bird laying on the dirt near second base.
A view from behind home plate showed the bird just chilling in the infield grass before getting obliterated by a baseball.
Guardians Will Brennan appears to have killed a bird sitting on the infield grass on a base hit, tough week for baseball and our winged friends pic.twitter.com/Oj8FA66T9i
— CJ Fogler account may or may not be notable (@cjzero) May 22, 2023
The game had to be paused as a groundskeeper removed the bird with a shovel before everyone went back to playing baseball as if a bird didn’t just die in front of them.
Will Brennan just hit a bird, grounds crew out with a shovel! #ForTheLand pic.twitter.com/jGqFNCOf2o
— Mike Picha (@themikepicha) May 22, 2023
Twice in a week can’t be a coincidence. Birds need to be put on alert that baseballs are targeting them at lethal rates of speed. But really, MLB fans could not believe that another bird got hit with a baseball.