During the bottom of the seventh inning of Monday’s game featuring the St. Louis Cardinals and Pittsburgh Pirates, home plate umpire Jerry Layne took a direct shot to the facemask on a foul ball.
Cardinals catcher Yadier Molina seemed to know something was wrong right away and came to Lane’s aid. It was quite a powerful shot he took, and it wasn’t the first of the inning, either.
After a minute or so of standing there afterward and saying “Whoa” multiple times, Lane exited the game with an apparent head injury.
This isn’t the first time in recent memory that Lane was forced from action after being hit with a foul ball, either. He left a game last August after Mike Trout hit a foul that tagged Lane’s elbow.