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CLEVELAND, Ohio — On Saturday night rookie center fielder Petey Halpin lost a fly ball in the smoke while playing at Progressive Field.
On Monday night, Halpin slapped hitting coach Grant Fink across the face after hitting his first homer in the big leagues.
Baseball is indeed a strange game.
In the second game of Saturday’s day-night doubleheader against the Pirates, smoke from the forest fires in Canada settled over Progressive Field following a one-hour and 15-minute rain delay.
In the third inning, Pittsburgh’s Esmerlyn Valdez skied a ball into the middle of that smoke in shallow center field. The ball fell untouched for a double as a run scored to give the Pirates a 2-0 lead in a game the Guardians won, 5-3.
“I’ve never seen a sky like that,” said Halpin. “It was the perfect culmination of it being dusk, with the smoke and it seemed like the sun was setting.
“The sky was red and gray. The second the ball was hit, I lost it. I was hoping it was going to hit me. I asked guys if they saw the ball and they said, no we were all lost.”
As for why he slapped Fink after hitting a two-run homer in the second inning Monday night in Cleveland’s 13-4 win over the Twins, here’s Halpin’s explanation.
“We’ve been doing this thing that before every game, he comes up to me and slaps me,” said Halpin. “I kind of like it. Yeah, it’s pretty hard.
“We were joking about a month ago. I told him when I hit my first home run, I’m going to slap you. We’ve talked about it a bunch of times and he said, ”Go for it. I’d love to see it. I want you to do it.’”
As Halpin circled the bases after hitting one of the Guardians’ seven home runs Monday night, he looked into the Cleveland dugout to find Fink.
“I saw him take his hat off and put it on backward,” said Halpin. “By the time I was walking toward the dugout, he put his chin out. I said, ”All right, let’s go.
“It was a lot of fun, but I’m not going to do that again.”
Halpin had a career night Monday. He went 3 for 4 with two homers, one double, three runs and three RBI.
He’s hitting .222 (16 for 72) with two homers and four RBI in 34 games.
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