Duke player flips bat thinking he hit a home run, but he was out
In retrospect, Duke left fielder RJ Schreck probably would have wanted to handle the moment differently.
In the top of the fourth inning Sunday in the ACC championship game against N.C. State, Duke had a runner on second when Schreck drove a 1-0 pitch to deep center field at Truist Field in Charlotte. Off the bat, it was clearly well hit, but Schreck thought his ball was leaving the yard and flipped his bat before starting a slow home-run trot.
The problem? Wolfpack center fielder Tyler McDonough tracked down the ball just in front of the warning track in what went down in the scorecard as a routine F8, leaving Schreck in disbelief.
To Schreck’s credit, he did move Ethan Murray, the runner on second base, over to third, and he scored with a sacrifice fly during the next at-bat, but that didn’t keep the Blue Devils’ dugout from giving their slugging outfielder a hard time.
Duke, winners of 11 straight, led N.C. State 1-0 after four innings.
