Return of the bats
Correa and Altuve finish 8-for-10, leading the Astros to a win over the Rangers.
ARLINGTON — The news left Julia Morales uneasy, thinking more on Saturday about that one situation every sideline reporter dreads.
Braves sideline reporter Kelsey Wingert —a Sugar Land native — was struck in the face by a foul ball while preparing a report in the seventh inning of Atlanta’s home loss to the Philadelphia Phillies on Friday night.
Wingert was taken to the hospital, where, according to her social media pages, a CT scan revealed a fractured eye socket. Wingert called herself “lucky” to escape with only that injury.
“It’s something we think about and something we worry about daily,” said Morales, the sixth-year AT&T SportsNet Southwest sideline reporter on Astros broadcasts. “And it does stop you in your tracks when it does happen. It could have been a lot worse, and I’m so glad she’s OK. But it is scary to think that it could have been worse or just how dangerous it could be.”
Sideline reporters are stationed in a photo well adjacent to the dugout of the team they cover.
Still and news photographers shoot there, too, sometimes with nothing but a waist-high railing to protect them from incoming batted balls.
In the same season all 30 teams extended the protective netting at their respective ballparks, Wingert’s incident provokes a similar thought for the photo wells, which currently provide no protection at most ballparks, Morales said.
“None of it is really safe,” Morales said. “If you’re down on the field level and the ball heads your way, it has a tendency to ricochet and that can be just as dangerous.”
During Saturday’s game, both Morales and Emily Jones — the Texas Rangers’ sideline reporter for Fox Sports Southwest — sat unprotected in camera wells.
Protecting the reporters and photographers working baseball games can be a “catch-22,” Jones said. Photographers sometimes balk at netting that will impede, or even ruin, their shots.
“The only thing you can do is duck,” Morales said. “And if there’s a lot of people or a lot of things, you can’t even jump out of the way. You kind of cover your face and wear it.”
‘Great signs’ from Gurriel
Yuli Gurriel received another eight at-bats on Saturday and stroked “a couple doubles off the wall,” manager A.J. Hinch said, all promising signs as the Astros first baseman works to return from the hand surgery to remove the hook in his hamate bone.
“He took a couple good swings today,” Hinch said. “We’re getting video updates and we’re getting text updates all the time with how many swings he’s taken per at-bat and what the outcomes are and stuff like that.
“All signs are pointing in a great direction for him.”
Currently participating in minor league camp in West Palm Beach, Fla., Gurriel is eligible to return to the club for Tuesday night’s game against Baltimore, when the fivegame suspension he incurred during the World Series is complete.
The Astros placed him on the restricted list — not the disabled list — to begin the season and whenever Gurriel does return, the Astros will need to clear a spot on their 25-man roster.
Logic points to either J.D. Davis or Derek Fisher as the odd man out.
Fisher started Friday’s game in left field and went 0-for-2.
Davis entered for him in the sixth inning, striking out to strand the bases loaded against Alex Claudio before drawing a ninth-inning walk.