SEATTLE _ Los Angeles Angels right-hander Matt Shoemaker walked off the mound with a towel draped over his head to cover a bleeding wound. In a frightening moment Sunday at Safeco Field, a line drive hit by the Seattle Mariners' Kyle Seager that was clocked at 105 mph drilled Shoemaker in the right side of the head and sent him to the hospital.
It was the eighth pitch of a fierce second-inning at-bat on a 3-and-2 count. Shoemaker fired a 94-mph fastball and Seager connected. Shoemaker was defenseless. Upon contact, he fell to his knees, and then to his side, in a grisly scene. The crowd hushed and both teams' trainers rushed to the mound.
The eight Angels in the field circled around, kneeling. For a minute, Seager stood, mouth agape, at first base. He paced nervously and then walked toward the mound to converse with the Angels. Three hundred feet away in the Angels' bullpen, Jhoulys Chacin demonstrated to J.C. Ramirez what had happened.
After several minutes, several men helped Shoemaker to his feet and off the field. He underwent testing at the ballpark, demonstrating he was responsive, and then was taken to a hospital for a CT scan.
Angels manager Mike Scioscia used six relievers behind Shoemaker, and they held the Mariners to seven hits and two runs over 7 2/3 innings in the Angels' 4-2 victory.
Albert Pujols and C.J. Cron provided back-to-back home runs in the first inning, both solo shots, and the Angels scored twice more on RBI singles in the sixth and eighth innings. They took two out of three games from the Mariners over the weekend.
Four years ago Monday, then-Angels shortstop Erick Aybar drilled Oakland right-hander Brandon McCarthy with a similar line drive. McCarthy suffered a fractured skull and needed surgery to relieve pressure on his brain caused by intracranial bleeding. Nine months later, he suffered a seizure.
Still, McCarthy and other pitchers who've suffered similar injuries have opted against wearing bulky protective headgear of the sort that San Diego Padres pitcher Alex Torres first tried in 2015. Available models are still too uncomfortable for most pitchers to consider wearing in games.
