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What's already been a difficult season for the Pittsburgh Pirates' Ross Ohlendorf took a scary turn for the worse Wednesday evening when Ohlendorf was hit in the head with a line drive off the bat of the Rockies' Troy Tulowitzki. Ohlendorf dropped to the ground, but quickly popped back onto his feet and walked off the field under his own power. On the Pirates' television broadcast he could be seen talking to his teammates and seemed OK, given the situation, though he was taken to the hospital for tests.
A CT scan on Ohlendorf turned up negative, and he is recovering from an abrasion and contusion on the right side of his head.
There's never really a good time to get hit in the head with a line drive, but this is a particularly bad time for it to happen Ohlendorf.
After a breakout season in 2009, he suffered from back spasms early this season, missed several starts, and didn't pitch well after coming off of the DL.
In four starts since the All-Star Break, though, he seemed to be getting back on track. He finally picked up his first win of the season and in the four starts had a 2.95 ERA and a 20:5 K:BB ratio in 21 1/3 innings. Those numbers even include an ugly start against the Astros in which he was bounced early.
Just as he was seemingly coming around, he gets hit in the head with a line drive.
Ohlendorf isn't the first Pirate pitcher to get beaned by a liner this year, either. Chris Jakubauskas was hit hard by a Lance Berkman liner back in April and hasn't pitched since. He's currently on the 60-day disabled list.
It's obviously too early to say if Ohlendorf's resulting injury will be anywhere near as serious as the other two, but it takes a pretty tremendous amount of bad luck to have two pitchers get hit so hard by line drives in the same season. Of course, the Pirates are nearly 30 games below .500 and it's not even July yet, so bad luck (among other things) is something they have in spades.
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