Orioles eject fan after ball thrown from stands strikes Blue Jays player

Jacob Calvin Meyer, The Baltimore Sun on May 31, 2026

Published in Baseball

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The Orioles on Sunday kicked a fan out of Camden Yards after they threw a ball from the stands that struck a Blue Jays player.

Blue Jays right fielder Jesús Sánchez exited Sunday’s game in the sixth inning after the ball hit him in the wrist during a mound visit.

“We have identified the fan and removed them from the ballpark while we conduct a thorough investigation,” an Orioles spokesperson said.

The team has not provided any other details aside from the spokesperson’s statement.

About a dozen fans in the right field bleachers described the situation as an accident involving a young fan. All of them said the young fan, approximately 13 years old, saw Sánchez flapping his glove as if to indicate he wanted to play catch during the mound visit. The television broadcast on Peacock does show Sánchez making that motion with his glove.

The fan threw the ball late after Sánchez had turned his head , and it struck the outfielder on his right wrist.

“What’re you thinking?” Orioles broadcaster Jim Palmer said on the Peacock broadcast. “I’d fingerprint him right now.”

Sánchez was in pain after the incident, and Blue Jays manager John Schneider walked out to right field to check on Sánchez. During their interaction, which was also shown on Peacock, Sánchez was seen pointing to right field, but neither Sánchez nor Schneider appeared angry.

“He’s coming out of the game,” Peacock play-by-play announcer Matt Vasgersian said. “This is unbelievable.”

Those who were in the right field bleachers at the time of the incident said the young fan was removed by the security officer standing nearby, and that the kid’s guardian also left.

“It might be a first for me,” Palmer said. “I’ve never seen anything like this.”

Schneider said after the game that X-rays on Sánchez’s wrist came back negative. Both the skipper and Sánchez described the incident as a miscommunication between the right fielder and the fan.

“Yeah, never know what you’re going to see at the ballpark,” Schneider said. “He was talking with a 12-year-old kid, kind of going back and forth, I think in a playful manner. Almost like, ‘Hey, let’s play catch.’ I think the kid took it literally and hit Sanch with the ball. Not ideal. First time I’ve seen that.

“Yeah, balls shouldn’t be coming into the field of play anywhere.”

Sánchez said his wrist “hurts a little bit,” but he doesn’t believe it’s serious. The 28-year-old said through a team interpreter he was not trying to play catch with the fan.

“It was a misunderstanding,” Sánchez said. “I wasn’t trying to play catch right there. I just looked at them, and they thought maybe I wanted to throw the ball back to me. But it was a misunderstanding completely. It is what it is.”

“I don’t wish for anything bad for anyone,” he added. “Things happen.”

Schneider described Sánchez as a fun-loving, playful personality, and that it could have been misconstrued by the fan who threw the ball.

“Sanchy’s like the most interesting man in the world. You can see it in the box, he loves playing the game, he loves having fun,” the skipper said. “I’m sure the kid feels bad. I’m assuming there’s no ill intent there. But yeah, just ball coming on the field during the inning is something that shouldn’t happen.”

“He was just more surprised than anything,” Schneider added. “I think when young kids, I got young kids, they can get a little excited.”

Orioles manager Craig Albernaz said he didn’t see what happened but that he hopes Sánchez is OK.

“I just saw Sanchez with his glove on the ground, and I just heard that a fan threw a ball,” Albernaz said. “That’s something that I know we’re looking into. We don’t want anyone getting hurt or fans throwing the ball on the field or anything like that. I think the imaging came back OK for Sanchez, something you don’t want to see, but I know we’ll look into it.”

This isn’t the first time a fan has thrown something at a player while the Orioles and Blue Jays are playing.

During Baltimore’s American League wild-card game loss to the Blue Jays in 2016, a Toronto fan at Rogers Centre threw a beer can at Orioles left fielder Hyun Soo Kim. The can barely missed hitting Kim, and center fielder Adam Jones yelled at the fan in the stands after the incident. The fan received a conditional discharge and was banned from games for one year.

The Orioles were winning 6-0 at the time of Sunday’s incident and went on to take the series finale, 9-5. After losing the first two games of the series, Baltimore (28-32) won the final two to go 7-3 on the homestand.

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