Giancarlo Stanton hits line drive off Masahiro Tanaka’s head, 2020 refuses to quit

The Fourth of July just doesn’t feel the same without baseball, but at least there’s still hope the sport returns later this month. For New York Yankees fans, that’s a beautiful thing, as the abbreviated, race-to-the-finish style season could play into the hands of the World Series favorites.

Another way the pandemic may have actually helped the Bronx Bombers is that the team may be at full health for Opening Day. Surely, nothing could happen between now and July 23 to jeopardize that.

Welp, I’ve got some bad news. Giancarlo Stanton hit a rocket line drive off of Masahiro Tanaka’s head on Saturday during a practice at Yankee Stadium. 2020 just refuses to quit:

Another, scarier angle:

You really cannot make this sh*t up, folks. The not-so-funny irony is that Stanton, who isn’t exactly the poster boy for staying healthy, just had to be the one to do this. Not to mention he was the one who took a pitch off the face six years ago. The former NL MVP gets a pretty bad rap from Yankee fans, and this ain’t gonna help change that one bit, even though this isn’t his fault.

I realize they appear to be doing some sort of simulated game here, but with a 60-game season looming, the Yanks are going to need everyone at full health to make a real run. Why isn’t Tanaka pitching behind a net, especially to Stanton, who ranks among the best in exit velo? What a freakin’ disaster. Hopefully Tanaka is okay: