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Minor-league pitcher bizarrely balks in run due to thunder

Originally posted on Larry Brown Sports
By Darryn Albert | Last updated Jul 8, 2025 11:33 PM ET

The Norfolk Tides got dunked on this week by an unexpected foe — the weather.

Norfolk (Triple-A affiliate of the Baltimore Orioles) faced off on Tuesday against the Jacksonville Jumbo Shrimp (Triple-A affiliate of the Miami Marlins) at VyStar Ballpark in Jacksonville, Fla. A very bizarre moment occurred during the bottom of the first inning of the game.

With a runner on third base and nobody out, Tides pitcher Roansy Contreras began his delivery to Jacksonville’s Graham Pauley. But Contreras abruptly aborted the delivery when a loud thunder clap in the area startled him (and just about everybody else in the stadium as well).

The home plate umpire was unmoved by the unusual weather situation though and called a balk on Contreras. As a result, the runner who was on third (Jacksonville’s Jakob Marsee) was waved in for the first run of the game by the Jumbo Shrimp.

Here is the bizarre video.

A lightning induced balk brought home a run in this MiLB game! pic.twitter.com/jJ7iematK7
— Jomboy Media (@JomboyMedia) July 9, 2025

The purpose of the balk rule, which only applies when there are runners on base, is to prevent pitchers from tricking baserunners with deceptive movements. So while Contreras’ stop-and-start there was technically a balk by the letter of the law, that is certainly not why the rule was implemented in the first place.

A better question is probably why the game was allowed to continue in Tuesday’s inclement weather. There were no delays at all during the contest, and the Tide managed to overcome the “thunder balk” to defeat the Jumbo Shrimp by a 9-5 final score. All things considered, that had to be the strangest balk in baseball since this one at the MLB level from last year.

This article first appeared on Larry Brown Sports and was syndicated with permission.

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