BOSTON (AP) \u2014 Houston first baseman Christian Walker expects to be in the lineup Sunday even though he left Saturday’s game in the ninth inning after getting hit in the head by a fastball from Boston left-hander Tyler Samaniego.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s always not a great situation, but I\u2019m feeling OK,\u201d Walker said following the Astros\u2019 6-3 victory over the Red Sox. \u201cI think the helmet took most of it. Turning away from it hopefully made it more of a glancing blow than a straight impact.\u201d<\/p>\n
He was hit by a 93.3 mph fastball and a piece of his helmet appeared to go flying off, which he thought was the C-flap that protects the jaw.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt hit the helmet first and then the ball hit me in the head,\u201d Walker said.<\/p>\n
A trainer came rushing out and Walker held a towel to the left side of his forehead as he walked to the dugout.<\/p>\n
Manager Joe Espada said Walker didn\u2019t get cut. When Walker was talking to the media, he had his hat down low over his forehead.<\/p>\n
\u201cScary,\u201d said Espada. \u201cWhen he kind of moved his head, the helmet kind of came loose and the ball kind of got some of the forehead area, but no blood.\u201d<\/p>\n
Walker expects to play Sunday.<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah, I\u2019m planning on it,” he said. “I just went through all the concussion stuff, so I don\u2019t see an issue with that.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs long as I don\u2019t wake up with some crazy neck stiffness or something like that, I plan on being in there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Walker hit a solo homer, had three hits and drove in a pair of runs as Houston bounced back from a loss in the series opener Friday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BOSTON (AP) \u2014 Houston first baseman Christian Walker expects to be in the lineup Sunday even though he…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":277323,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[88826,56,58,57,5515,202,196,88829,942,92297,102542],"class_list":["post-277322","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston","tag-christian-walker","tag-houston","tag-houston-headlines","tag-houston-news","tag-joe-espada","tag-package-100502-member-choice-sports-option","tag-product-30599-ap-sports-news-s-wire-only","tag-product-40791-ap-massachusetts-sports-only","tag-product-40815-ap-texas-sports-only","tag-tyler-samaniego","tag-walker-astros-beaned"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277322","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=277322"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277322\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/277323"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=277322"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=277322"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=277322"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}