Cleveland rookie outfielder Cooper Ingle owned up to a costly mental lapse Tuesday night at Progressive Field, a mistake that helped hand the Guardians a 4-2 loss to the Texas Rangers.
In a tie game in the seventh, with a runner on second and one out, Ingle hauled in a fly ball off the bat of Alejandro Osuna for out number two. But thinking the inning was over, he fired the live ball into the stands. That mental miscue turned costly in a hurry, as the umpires ruled the ball dead and awarded the runner home, putting Texas up 3-2.
The 24-year-old, called up just last week, did not dodge responsibility after the game.
“Obviously feel terrible, so a pretty embarrassing feeling,” Ingle told reporters after the game. “But having a group of guys that are behind you the whole time definitely helps. Tough situation.”
Ingle went 0-for-4 with three strikeouts at the plate, but said he tried to shake off the defensive blunder and focus on his next at-bats.
“I tried to do my best to look past it and get to the next pitch and the next at-bat,” he said. “I thought I controlled my at-bat pretty well, and hit the ball hard right at somebody.”
He said he plans to use the mistake as a learning experience as he settles into his big league career.
“Obviously learn from it and think about it. It’s not something that makes you feel great, but things like that happen for a reason,” Ingle said. “Learning from those things and moving on and getting better from them – it’s pretty much the only thing you can do.”
Afterward, Ingle made a point to thank his teammates for having his back and went straight to starting pitcher Tanner Bibee, who was on the mound during the seventh-inning sequence.
“I went over and apologized to Bibee,” Ingle said. “If that didn’t happen, he might be able to go further in the game, save the bullpen a little bit. But you know, things happen, and he had my back and all the other guys in the dugout had my back.”
Guardians manager Stephen Vogt publicly supported the rookie, noting that similar mental errors have occurred throughout Major League Baseball history.
“I just said, ‘Hey, flush it. Go get a hit for us.’ It’s a mistake. Lost track of the outs, pretty big spot, but we’ll learn from it. Can’t control it once it happens. So, I was like, ‘Flush it,’” Vogt told the media postgame.
Vogt also praised the clubhouse for how they handled the situation when Ingle returned to the dugout.
“I just want to give credit to the dugout. Every one of his teammates, when he came back in — same message. You make a mistake like that, you don’t know how your teammates are going to respond. Obviously I’m sure Coop is going to beat himself up about it, but those things happen, and we learn from it, we flush it and we move on.”
Vogt added: “These things happen. Rookie, non-rookie – it’s happened to Hall of Famers. They’ve done it. So, it’s things that happen in the game. We’re going to keep learning, we’re going to keep getting better.”
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