Pitchers Can't Avoid the Risks of Hard Comebackers Scott Audette/Reuters Facing the Tampa Bay Rays at Tropicana Field on May 7, J.A. Happ was struck just below the left ear by a Desmond Jennings line drive. You release the pitch, you see a flash of white, and you try to react. It is not much of a defense, but for a pitcher facing a line drive from less than 60 feet away, there is nothing else to do. "On that one there with Cano, if it was eight inches or a foot higher, it's crushing me in the face," said Mark Buehrle, the Toronto Blue Jays left-hander, who narrowly escaped damage on a laser by Robinson Cano at Yankee Stadium Tuesday night. It's just a reaction play. You try to move or get out of the way as quick as you can - and if that one was higher, I would have been done. Buehrle is a four-time Gold Glove winner, but that made no difference Tuesday. Buehrle was lucky. Cano's ball clipped his glove and thumped him in the chest. The Blue Jays trainer never left the dugout. On May 7, another Toronto left-hander was not as fortunate. J. A. Happ, who will face the Yankees in the Bronx Thursday afternoon, lived every pitcher's nightmare. Facing the Tampa Bay Rays at Tropicana Field, Happ was struck just below the left ear by a Desmond Jennings line drive. The impact fractured his skull. His fall on the mound sprained ligaments in his right knee. The injuries kept him off a major league mound for three months. And he feels lucky. "I think I was fortunate because it would have maybe been a different story if there were more issues with how I was feeling up here," Happ said Tuesday, pointing to his head. I had fluid under my ear and my ear was bleeding, and I was just hoping it was blood and not another kind of brain fluid or something. It was not brain fluid. Happ needed eight stitches in his ear, but said he did not sustain a concussion from the hit. He did not experience vertigo, like Tampa Bay pitcher Alex Cobb, who was hit by a liner on the same mound June 15 in a game against the Kansas City Royals. Cobb missed two months. After a rough start in his first game back, Happ has allowed three earned runs in 12 1/3 innings in his last two starts. He returned to Tropicana Field last Saturday and beat the Rays for his first victory since the accident. "I definitely took a little time to try to appreciate it," Happ said. That's a place where I haven't necessarily been at my best, and getting hit by the ball there was a little bit eerie. But, to be honest, I was just anticipating so much coming back and getting back on the mound. Leading up to it I definitely thought about it, but once I got out there I was just trying to pitch. John Gibbons, the Blue Jays" manager and a former catcher, said he had never seen a pitcher hit directly in the head before Happ. The closest, he said, was when a pitcher took a liner off the back of his neck and stayed in the game. "You never really know for sure how somebody's going to react," Gibbons said. He got hit and he went down. You always figure, in the back of your mind, some guys may not be able to get through that. But we haven't noticed anything. He's picked up right where he left off. Buehrle has never been hit in the head. If it ever happened, he said, he imagined that the fear of another liner would always linger. But he has seen no evidence of tentativeness from Happ. The incidents of ball meeting head are so violent and startling that they tend to stand out. Brandon McCarthy, then with Oakland, was struck last September, and Detroit's Doug Fister was hit in the World Series, but considering the many thousands of pitches thrown every season, the amount that strike a pitcher's head are statistically minimal. Happ said he would try a protective cap or helmet, but he has never seen a viable prototype. Major League Baseball has worked with companies to develop one, without success. Given where Jennings's ball struck Happ, only a helmet with a left earflap would have protected him, anyway. Happ was hit in the shin once, he said, but never in the head before May. To keep going, he said, he does not need to remind himself of the low odds against a repeat. Living with the risk is simply part of his job, he said, and there was no way to minimize it. "I think it's just knowing that hesitation is going to cripple your ability to perform," he said. If you pitch a little scared, you're not going to be finishing pitches. You're going to be reacting before you let the ball go to try to be in position to field the ball. It definitely would negatively affect the way I pitch if I was constantly concerned about it. Once you throw the ball, it's your job to become a fielder, as we always say. But in certain instances, it's just going to hit you or it's not. If you go out there with a little fear, you're not going to have the success that you want. The Blue Jays are stuck in last place, and Happ's season statistics - a 3-2 record, with a 4.93 earned run average - are ordinary. But he has already succeeded by returning to the mound. He is on the job again, accepting the workplace hazards. "It seemed like forever getting back, but we've still got a lot of season left," Happ said. Still got a good opportunity.