Yankees second baseman Robinson Cano was beaned by a fastball in the fifth inning last night, forcing him out of the game against the Royals and, perhaps, prompting A.J. Burnett to retaliate.
The Yankees said a CT scan was negative and Cano’s status is day to day.
“He’s conscious. That’s the first good sign,” Mark Teixeira said after the Yankees’ 4-3, 11-inning loss to the Royals. “Hopefully he’ll be all right [today].”
With two outs and none on in the fifth, reliever Nathan Adcock drilled Cano with a 1-1 pitch, the hitter’s helmet flying off. Cano sat in the batter’s box and assistant trainer Steve Donahue and manager Joe Girardi came out to check him. Cano eventually walked to first base, apparently set to stay in the game. But soon after, Eduardo Nunez came in to pinch run.
“Walking down the first-base line he said he was OK and felt good,” Girardi said. “When you get hit in the head like that, you have to do a CT scan.”
Adcock said it was a pitch that got away.
“It just got away. You gotta pitch in to pitch in the big leagues, but there was no purpose to hit him in the head. … That’s a scary thing. That’s dealing with someone’s life. That can change a lot of things. You never want to see that happen.”
In the next half inning, Burnett, with one out and a runner on first, plunked Jeff Francoeur on his shoulder, prompting an umpire warning to both teams.
“I hit him. That’s all I can say. I don’t think anybody wants to hit a guy with a runner on and one out and a one-run lead. The situation made it out worse than it was obviously,” Burnett said, admitting he knew it looked bad. “I know Jeff, too. That’s even worse when you know somebody and you end up hitting him.”
Francoeur had no issue with getting hit.
“The only reason I thought it might’ve been [intentional] was because when he did miss all night he was missing away,” he said. “Whether he was or not, that’s part of the game. I know A.J. and even if he did, he did it professionally and hit me in the back and was done with it. That’s how it is. It’s all good by me.”
Royals manager Ned Yost said he believed Burnett hit Francoeur on purpose.
“Of course it was intentional,” he said. “Adcock’s a rookie. We didn’t hit Cano. Cano’s a great player. That was an absolute accident, but I didn’t think Burnett hitting Francoeur was an accident. That’s the way the game goes sometimes.”
If Cano can’t play tonight, the Yankees will presumably have Nunez at second again. It will be a major loss if Cano is still ailing for the Red Sox series, which begins tomorrow. Boston’s first starter is Clay Buchholz, against whom Cano is a career 9-for-17.
Additional reporting by Howard Kussoy and Brian Costello