Hunter Greene may have given new meaning to the phrase “boot and rally.”
The Reds pitcher was clearly battling something when he took the mound in the top of the first inning of Cincinnati’s loss to the Pittsburgh Pirates on Tuesday night at Great American Ball Park.
Green walked the first batter of the game on six pitches to start the first inning.
Against the second batter of the game, Green threw out his first pitch to Bryan Reynolds.
Green (5-3) gave up three runs in the first inning, throwing 32 pitches, and finished the fourth inning, allowing just six earned runs on seven hits, two walks and five strikeouts.
“Nobody really knows (what caused it), but I have a lot of fluid in my body,” Green said. “It seems like there’s no way to get it out of my body other than throwing up. It just sits in my chest. Nobody wants to go out and get sick. After that, I was able to get through hitters, but I wasn’t able to finish them off.”
It was the second game in a row that Greene had vomited, the first of which came against the Pirates, but the Reds pitcher attributed it to drinking too much weather drink.
“I definitely had too much water,” Green said at the time, according to the Cincinnati Inquirer.
During Tuesday night’s incident, team trainers came out to check on Green and his teammates.
There was a brief injury delay before the match continued.
Green entered Tuesday’s game with a 5-2 record, a 3.35 ERA, a 1.117 WHIP and a 3.0 WAR.
He threw over 100 pitches in seven consecutive games.
Pitchers falling ill on the mound is nothing new and has happened before in major league baseball, including in 2021 when it happened to Dylan Bundy at Yankee Stadium in temperatures approaching 100 degrees.
The Pirates (38-41) are one game behind the Reds (37-42) in the race for the National League wild card.
The Padres (43-41) would hold the final National League wild card spot if the season ended today.
— The Associated Press
