WATCH: Enrique Hernandez Mic’d Up During Dramatic Play Against Yankees

Kike Hernandez
Carmen Mandato/Getty Images
Dylan Gwinn

Baseball has made plenty of innovations to the game in recent years, and many of them are bad, but this is definitely not one of them.

During Sunday night’s series finale between the Yankees and the Red Sox, Boston outfielder Enrique Hernandez was wearing a mic and actually conversing with broadcasters during the game. Not only that, he correctly predicted the play that was about to unfold in front of him.

“With Anthony Rizzo at bat, Isiah Kiner-Falefa at second and Jose Trevino at first, Boston pitcher Ryan Brasier threw a pitch in the dirt, allowing both runners to advance,” the New York Post reports. “From center field, Hernandez sized up the situation to the broadcast booth aptly.”

“Fast guy at third (Kiner-Falefa), slow guy at second (Trevino). If he gets a base hit to me I’m going to throw him out at home, maybe,” Hernandez prophetically explained.

On the next pitch, the base hit Hernandez envisioned came his way.

“Here it is!” Hernandez shouted.

Unfortunately for Hernandez, and the Red Sox, the tail end of that prediction, the part about throwing the runner out, did not happen. Instead, the cut-off man snatched the ball out of the air, and the Yankees scored.

However, it was one of the best television moments in recent baseball memory, and it presents a unique angle that MLB can exploit. It would be extremely difficult to mic up an NFL or NBA player and actually have a conversation with them during the game. NFL and NBA players are mic’d up all the time, but both sports are too fast-paced with not nearly enough pauses in the action to get any kind of real conversation going.

It could happen, but it would be very rushed and likely unintelligible.

Meanwhile, baseball has the perfect pacing for a feature like this. Now, will all players be able to put on their best Nostradamus impersonations and correctly predict plays on live television? No.

But expect to see a lot more of this.

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