Kikuchi is ‘a little embarrassed’ following an on-field incident with A’s Soderstrom.
Tyler Soderstrom, the A’s first baseman, chased after the ball, which ended up right in front of the visitors’ dugout. Soderstrom was poised to make the grab when Blue Jays left-hander Yusei Kikuchi charged out of the dugout, colliding with him.
Schneider was called out after being ruled to have interfered with the dugout. Fortunately, Kikuchi and Soderstrom were unharmed by the incident.
“With the way our dugouts are, guys are sitting on the top step and it’s somewhat uncomfortable when the ball is coming in at you,” Mark Kotsay, the Oakland A’s manager, said. “I think he was just trying to really get out of the way so he didn’t get hit with the foul ball and inadvertently kind of laid his shoulder into Tyler.”
Kikuchi told the media after the game that he had simply been trying to move out of the way and expressed sorry for the incident.
“I forgot there’s no fence,” Kikuchi explained through interpreter Yusuke Oshima. “After, I just wanted to create a little hole and hide inside it, because I was a little embarrassed.”
There was some uproar on the field following the play, which Blue Jays manager John Schneider attributed to the A’s assumption that Kikuchi intentionally ran into Soderstrom.
“The last thing Yusei Kikuchi is going to try to do is tackle a first baseman,” Schneider stated. “I understand how emotions may run high during close games, extra innings, and other situations. So yeah, I caught a little part of it, but I admire how the boys stood up for their teammates.”
The Coliseum is the only Major League ballpark without railings in front of the dugouts, and Blue Jays starter Bowden Francis couldn’t recall playing at a Triple-A ballpark without them in recent years.
It’s one of the many eccentricities of the A’s home ballpark, which opened in 1966 (as a football stadium) and still has some old-school elements, like bullpens on the field.
“That’s part of this ballpark,” Francis added. “I think it’s cool, however. It’s interesting to gaze down from the bullpen. You can see the coaches kind of squatting over their knee. “It looks like the 1940s.”