By Matt Young
Houston Chronicle
HOUSTON — A hard hit foul ball by Michael Brantley went scorching into the Astros dugout and hit a paramedic supervisor in the head in the fifth inning of Game 2 of the Astros-Yankees American League Championship Series on Sunday.
The medic was taken to the hospital where he is in stable condition, according to Harris County Emergency Corps CEO Jeremy Hyde.
The game was stopped briefly as several Astros looked on in stunned silence. The official was taken to the Astros’ clubhouse and the game resumed.
Minutes after the foul ball, the official was loaded on a cart outside the clubhouse and taken to the hospital. He was sitting up and alert, but was holding a towel up to his head where the foul ball hit him. The white towel had drops of blood on it.
Astros pitcher Gerrit Cole, who is scheduled to pitch in Game 3 on Tuesday, was in the tunnel checking on the official as he was being wheeled out.
The paramedic supervisor works for Harris County Emergency Corps and was serving as the team’s paramedic. He’s one of two medics that alternates working Astros games.
While the medic was being attended to in the dugout, Brantley was clearly shaken up. Astros manager A.J. Hinch came out of the dugout to comfort Brantley during the delay, but Brantley wanted to keep what was said private.
“I’ll keep that between us,” Brantley said. “I did appreciate it, though. My thoughts and prayers are with him and my thoughts and prayers are with his family.”
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A 2-year-old girl sitting down the third base side of the ballpark, beyond the area protected by netting before it was extended, suffered a fractured skull May 29 when she was struck by a foul ball off the bat of the Chicago Cubs’ Albert Almora Jr.
That injury prompted the Astros to extend netting more than 550 feet from foul line to foul line, covering the area in which the child was injured. The netting was installed in mid-August and debuted Aug. 19.
Since the incident at Minute Maid, the Chicago White Sox and Washington Nationals installed expanded netting in addition to the Astros, and the Tigers, Los Angeles Dodgers, Kansas City Royals, Pittsburgh Pirates, Texas Rangers and Toronto Blue Jays announced plans to do so for next season.
The Astros had been one of the first teams to extend netting to the far edge of each dugout in 2017, a policy later adopted by MLB for all teams in 2018.
There are no nets protecting the dugouts themselves.
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