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<p>The scariest moment for a pitcher on any level is when a ball comes off the bat back to the mound at more than 100 miles per hour.</p><p>Most of those times, the ball is caught by a reflexive pitcher or the hurler quickly gets out of the way to avoid an injury.</p><p>But there are the rare instances when the pitcher just doesn&#8217;t have time to move and gets nailed with the batted ball in the upper part of the body, or worst yet,the head.</p><p>Last week, Yankees right-hander Bryan Mitchell, who spent a good portion of the season with the RailRiders experienced the frightful experience when a liner off the bat struck him and left him with a broken nose.</p><p>His former Scranton/Wilkes-Barre teammates had a scheduled day off that night, but when they saw the incident, it certainly struck home.</p><p>&#8220;It&#8217;s something that you never want to happen to anybody and hopefully it comes out better. Obviously it wasn&#8217;t as bad as initially thought so that&#8217;s good and hopefully he has a full recovery,&#8221; said RailRiders infielder Cole Figueroa, who was in the Tampa Bay organization when right-hander Alex Cobb took a similar hit in 2013 and missed two months that year. &#8220;It really is an organization effect and it&#8217;s not just a Big League scare. Anybody that comes into contact with them is hoping for the best.&#8221;</p><p>When Mitchell took the liner to his head, he became the second pitcher in the Yankees organization to get hit in that fashion this season.</p><p>The previous time was to current RailRiders righty Brady Lail, when he was struck in the face by a liner while pitching for Double-A Trenton in May against Portland. The 22-year-old left that game in the first inning, and avoided the disabled list. Still, when he saw what happened to his pal in New York, it touched home.</p><p>&#8220;He&#8217;s gonna be fine and hopefully that&#8217;s gonna be the light switch that&#8217;s gonna keep him going in the Big Leagues,&#8221; Lail said. &#8220;When I saw that happen, my gut dropped for him. But knowing him as a person I know he&#8217;s gonna take that as a light switch and keep going.&#8221;</p><p>That&#8217;s what Lail did. He used the incident as motivation. Before that game, Lail entered with an ERA nearing 4.50. After the occurrence, Lail turned it on, and before he was promoted to the RailRiders earlier this month, his Double-A ERA was nearly two runs lower.</p><p>&#8220;I&#8217;ve been playing for 15-16 years, I never thought it would happen to me. So when it happened to me, it&#8217;s one of those things where you just appreciate the small things and appreciate what you&#8217;re doing. Not a lot of people can say they&#8217;re playing it for the love of the game,&#8221; Lail said. &#8220;So I took that to heart saying &#8216;man this could be taken away from me just like that.&#8217;</p><p>&#8220;It was a light switch for me that I needed to execute pitches, grow up and keep growing with the game and that was something I took from it. It was definitely a learning experience for me.&#8221;</p><p>Lail didn&#8217;t even miss a start after getting hit. He was back on the mound for Trenton five days later. He was teammates at Trenton with fellow RailRider starter Eric Wooten, who has praise for his teammate.</p><p>&#8220;That takes a lot of guts to do that,&#8221; Wooten said about Lail.</p><p>With such incidents happening within three months of each other in the same organization, it&#8217;s got Wooten thinking a little bit, but he knows he can&#8217;t change his game either.</p><p>&#8220;Most of the time when balls are hit you have no reaction time whatsoever so you really can&#8217;t think about it,&#8221; he said. &#8220;You just have to go out there and make your pitches and hope that nothing happens.&#8221;</p><p>New York Mets pitcher Alex Torres wears a protective hat and was the first pitcher in the Majors to take the precautionary measure by wearing the padded cap. Wooten didn&#8217;t rule out possibly donning that headgear one day, but was hesitant when asked about perhaps wearing a protective shield one day on the mound.</p><p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t know. It might mess with your vision too much. I never really thought about it,&#8221; he said. &#8220;That&#8217;d take some getting used to for sure.&#8221;</p><style>
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<div class="neCaption">New York Yankees pitcher Bryan Mitchell, who pitched for the RailRiders this season, suffered a broken nose when he was hit by a line drive last week. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo0>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/web1_Twins-Yankees-Basebal_Rose.jpg</photo0><caption0>New York Yankees pitcher Bryan Mitchell, who pitched for the RailRiders this season, suffered a broken nose when he was hit by a line drive last week. </caption0><photoCredit0></photoCredit0></div></div>
<div class="metaInfo"><subheadMeta>Mitchell 2nd in Yankees organization this year to get hit in the head</subheadMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta><p>By Dave Rosengrant</p><p>drosengrant@www.timesleader.com</p></bylineMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><shirttailMeta><p>Reach Dave Rosengrant at 570-991-6398 or on Twitter @tldrosengrant</p></shirttailMeta></div>

Pitchers on alert for batted balls