Yankees reliever Michael King ran into issues with his PitchCom device during Tuesday’s extra-innings win over the Orioles, and his frustrations turned into a fun, albeit temporary, moment for one fan in the stands.
King’s PitchCom, a device that allows pitchers and catchers to agree on a pitch without hand signals, began to malfunction in the ninth inning while down 5–4 to Baltimore. Rather than try and work through the issues with the game on the line, King ditched the device and tried to toss it back to his team’s dugout. Instead, he sent it flying into the stands, where a fan snagged it and looked absolutely delighted to have done so.
Michael King launched his pitch com into the stands pic.twitter.com/N6RZlkLd7G
— Talkin' Yanks (@TalkinYanks) May 24, 2023
“I got nervous ’cause I know you can call time for PitchCom, but I didn’t know if you could do it for a transmitter malfunction. So I just took it off and chucked it,” King said after the game, per the Associated Press. “I thought it was definitely going to land in front of our dugout, and then it kind of took off like a Frisbee and I saw it floating. And then I saw it almost hit a fan. And then apparently they were hitting the button. Luckily, it wasn’t working.”
Luckily for the Yankees, the fan saved them a $5,000 bill from MLB and returned the device to the team. More importantly for King, he navigated the ninth and allowed just one walk, giving Aaron Judge the opportunity to tie the game with a home run in the bottom of the ninth. A perfect 10th inning for King set up a walk-off sacrifice fly for Anthony Volpe in the bottom of the frame.
