Wednesday’s college baseball game between UTSA and FAU got chippy in a hurry after an incident during the seventh inning. The Roadrunners intentionally had one of their pitchers throw at a batter’s head for revenge.
He was rightfully ejected!
All of the drama stemmed from a pretty gnarly collision during the American Athletic Conference tournament. It was an elimination game that got heated during the late innings of a blowout.
UTSA second baseman Diego Diaz was covering the bag on a ball that was hit to left field. His back was turned to FAU’s baserunner, Christian Adams. Because Diaz was standing in his way and Adams was running full speed around second toward third, the latter ran right through the former.
The crash was pretty violent. Diaz ended up on the ground.
That did not go over well with the Roadrunners.
They made a pitching change for the eighth inning and send junior pitcher Conor Myles to the mound. He had only thrown 18.2 innings all season prior to Wednesday.
The 6-foot-4, 242-pound lefty faced Adams to start the inning. Myles threw behind his head for ball one and received a warning from the umpires. He threw up-and-in for ball two. Ball three plunked Adams.
Myles was immediately tossed from the contest.
If nothing else, UTSA certainly has tried to bring some drama to the AAC.
— Stephen Igoe (@StephenIgoe) May 23, 2024
After FAU's Christian Adams ran through a UTSA infielder running the bases in the seventh, the Roadrunners put in a new pitcher the next frame who threw at Adams three straight times and got ejected. pic.twitter.com/DMG5KJ5DyT
Hitting Adams with a pitch after he ran over an infielder was clearly intentional. But who was responsible for the call? Was it the coach’s idea? Was it Myles’ rogue decision? Did the team decide together?
Myles’ three-pitch outing was not discussed further after the college baseball game. FAU went on to win, and eliminate UTSA from the postseason, by a score of 12-5.
Because their season is over, the Roadrunners probably will not face any further ramifications. The AAC could choose to punish them for the start of next year but that seems very unlikely.