Believe in the eagle-eyed baseball fans to notice on-field details that even the umpires often fail to see.
The Cardinals swept the Astros on Sunday, and the fans hoped to take a dig at Houston as they are now on a 4-game losing streak. The Astros took the hit, but the Cardinals were also not spared as the fans questioned the on-field antics after their catcher took an accidental hit off an Astros slugger.
It’s not common in MLB to get questioned after taking a hit, but Sunday was different.
“Taylor Trammell nailed the catcher in the head with his backswing and didn’t realize he hit the ball fair. He ended up with a triple,” Jomboy Media shared via X.
In the third inning, Trammell was at the batter’s box with the score tied at zero. He hit a flyer off the Cardinals’ Matthew Liberatore that, along the foul line to the right-field corner. However, his strong back swing struck the catcher, Pedro Pages, at his side. Pages fell off from the impact, and while the ball struck the fence, Trammell took time to launch.
Taylor Trammell nailed the catcher in the head with his backswing and didn’t realize he hit the ball fair.
He ended up with a triple pic.twitter.com/CNGo4rjlf5
— Jomboy Media (@JomboyMedia) April 19, 2026
He was checking at the catcher as the home plate umpire was helping up Pages, which caused Trammell’s delay in running. Although still covered at third base, a timely launch could help the Astros score an in-the-park home run. The Cardinals’ catcher was seen getting attended to by an athletic trainer and remained in the game.
Now, while it seems a routine day in baseball, fans question the true intensity of the hit on Pages’ mask. The replay shows Trammell’s bat struck the side of Pages’ helmet, and although the hit looked like nothing major, the Cardinals catcher still lost his balance. And as the home plate umpire was getting him up, he was looking at a fly-ball.
The fans’ question is whether the impact was actually that high, or if it was made-up to slow down the 28-year-old’s baserunning.
The Cardinals have a scary history of their catchers getting hit by back-swing. In 2024, Willson Contreras suffered a fractured left arm after being struck by J.D. Martinez’s backswing during a game against the Mets. The impact caused immediate numbness and sidelined him for several weeks. No questions were raised that time, but Sunday was different.
The Astros scored the first run, riding on Trammell’s triple, but they still went down against the Cardinals by 5-7. The Cardinals swept, the Astros extended their losing streak, but for the fans, they found a hint of soccer-style antics in the diamond on Sunday.
Fans question the Cardinals’ catcher
Was the back-swing so hard in reality? Fans wonder. “Bro, he barely touched him, catcher played that up for sure,” one fan said.
MLB bat speeds average roughly 71–72 mph, with fast swings defined as 75 mph or higher. So, the backswings would still be brutal enough to have a major impact. Contreras was the best example of how brutal it could be. However, the footage from Sunday showed a bare touch of the tip of Trammell’s bat to the side of Pages’ mask.
So, the fans wondered if it was for real or if it was not visible in the footage. “Barely tapped the gear, I’m sure he’s just fine. Lying on the ground as he got pummeled with no mask on,” another added. The impact could still have been high if there had been no headgear for the Cardinals’ catcher. Still, it is also true that sometimes impact cannot be evaluated from a distance.
Remember Justin Verlander’s elbow injury back in 2020. Initially, it seemed like a forearm strain, but it was later revealed to be a torn ulnar collateral ligament.
“Dude needs to start playing soccer…,” one user remarked. Faking on-field injury and theatrics are common in soccer. Those are done on purpose to slow down the momentum. For instance, Brazilian footballer Neymar is known for his exaggerated reaction to tackles. Here, the fans think, the Cardinals catcher tried the same to slow down Trammell’s baserunning. “Oh, that catcher deserves an award for dramatic,” another agrees.
“Inside the park HR if he books it soon as he hit lmao,” one fan said. Had Trammell not checked at the Cardinals catcher after his hit, he could have completed a home plate run instead of a triple. So, fans are certain that the theatrics were done to avoid a run. The Astros still scored in the third, but it was the Cardinals who had the last laugh that night.
