Top Blue Jays prospect rips double INTO wall
This browser does not support the video element.
Top-ranked Blue Jays prospect Gabriel Moreno has climbed the Minor League ladder -- and earned a Major League callup earlier this year -- on the strength of, well, just that -- his power. But the feat he pulled off on Wednesday for Triple-A Buffalo likely can't be contained by the 20-80 scouting scale.
At the plate in the bottom of the ninth against Lehigh Valley, Moreno ripped a 2-0 pitch from Francisco Morales that surely was headed for extra bases off the wall in left field ... except the ball never bounced off the wall. Moreno's liner ended up lodged in the padding as Iron Pigs left fielder Chris Sharpe threw his hands up, a sentiment that was surely shared by many in the ballpark.
Moreno reached third base before the the umpire crew sent him back to second on a ground-rule double, the appropriate call in accordance with baseball rule 5.05(a)(7). Sharpe made one attempt to dislodge the ball from its perch but was unsuccessful.
The play, while quirky, occasionally happens at the Major League level. However, most of those occurrences involve a chain-link fence or a gap between panels of padding. Moreno's liner clearly had a mind of its own, disregarding what otherwise appears to be a normal segment of the Sahlen Field wall in left.