Red Sox fan taken to hospital after being struck by errant bat at Fenway Park

Ben Rohrbach
Blue Jays second baseman Devon Travis’ bat flies into the Fenway crowd in the eighth inning on Wednesday night. (AP)
Blue Jays second baseman Devon Travis’ bat flies into the Fenway crowd in the eighth inning on Wednesday night. (AP)

Excitement at Fenway Park about the Boston Red Sox reaching the 100-win mark for the first time since the Ted Williams era was tempered when a fan was struck by an errant bat on Wednesday night.

Trailing 1-0 with two on and two out in the top of the eighth inning, Toronto Blue Jays second baseman Devon Travis took a hard cut at the first knuckleball he saw from Steven Wright. His bat soared well down the third-base line, about 15 rows back, colliding with a man’s forehead. Travis immediately grabbed his helmet and hung his head, as if he was horrified to witness the result.

The man bled profusely from the head. Fans rushed to apply pressure with a towel, and security soon followed. The man was “quickly treated by medical personnel on scene” and taken to Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center for further evaluation, a Red Sox spokesperson told the Associated Press.

The fan drew a roaring ovation from the Fenway crowd when he stood up on his own accord, pressing a towel to his head, and pumped his left fist in solidarity before being taken off in a stretcher.

The fan was “home and doing fine” on Thursday evening, a Red Sox spokesperson told Yahoo Sports. The Blue Jays did not return comment on whether Travis tried to contact the fan after the game.

The Red Sox held on to the 1-0 victory, improving their league-best record to 100-46 and moving 54 games above .500 for the first time since finishing 104-50 in 1946 — the team’s last 100-win campaign.

In 2015, a Red Sox fan was rushed to the hospital with life-threatening injuries when she was struck by Oakland A’s infielder Brett Lawrie’s broken bat along the same third-base line. The woman survived the harrowing incident. In a league-wide effort to protect fans from flying bats and balls, Fenway joined other ballparks this season in extending its protective netting, but Travis’ bat soared over it.

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Ben Rohrbach is a writer for Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at rohrbach_ben@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!

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