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Korean pitcher's pickoff attempt goes dangerously wrong

Lim Chang-yong's wild pickoff throw nearly hits Oh Jae-won. (@MyKBO on Twitter)
Lim Chang-yong’s wild pickoff throw nearly hits Oh Jae-won. (@MyKBO on Twitter)

There’s not a lot of context to this scary highlight from the Korean Baseball Organization (KBO). Most of what we know for sure is what we see, and that’s Kia Tigers pitcher Lim Chang-yong nearly taking Doosan Bears’ baserunner Oh Jae-won’s head off with an outrageously and dangerously bad pickoff throw.

At first look, you’d swear Lim Chang-yong took headhunting to a new extreme by targeting a defenseless runner. When he spins around, he almost appears to zero in on Oh Jae-won before firing a fastball. However, it may have actually been a miscommunication that led to the near-miss, as postgame reports suggested a missed signal with the shortstop.

If true, that’s one terrifying mix up.

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Looking from different angles, there’s at least one plausible explanation that would support a complete mix up. In addition to the shortstop missing the signal, the presence of the second-base umpire may have thrown everything off, leading to Lim Chang-yong thinking the runner was actually his shortstop darting toward the bag.

It’s also possible he has really bad aim, but his job entails throwing the same baseball really hard with really good aim. So let’s cross that one off. That leaves sending a message. The fact that everyone seemed to be smiling in the aftermath though probably eliminates that for good too.

Bottomline, only the pitcher really knows what his intentions were. We should probably just be glad he missed.

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Mark Townsend is a writer for Big League Stew on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at bigleaguestew@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!