Timeout not granted, so prospect improvises on a balk and somehow gets a hit

Scouts talk all the time about bat-to-ball skills -- the ability to make contact on pitches anywhere over the plate, no matter the circumstances.

White Sox prospect George Wolkow went next level with that concept when he drove in a run on a one-handed single Tuesday night on a pitch that was called a balk. And on top of that, it wouldn't have even happened if he had gotten his way in the first place.

The club's No. 11 prospect tried to call a timeout before the first pitch of his at-bat after Braves No. 29 prospect Ethan Bagwell started and stopped his delivery during the first inning of Single-A Kannapolis' 5-4 loss to visiting Augusta at Atrium Health Ballpark.

Home-plate umpire Nicholas Saxton didn't grant the timeout, even as Wolkow started to step out of the box and took his right hand off the bat. Field umpire Parker Powell signaled for a balk but Bagwell fired his pitch home and the lefty swinger wound up putting a half-hearted, one-handed swing on it.

"I was always taught like, 'Hey, if it's a balk and he throws it, it's a free swing, swing out of your shoes,'" Wolkow said. "But I only had one hand on the bat, so I was like, ‘Alright, free swinging.'"

Lo and behold, the 19-year-old made contact and stung it on the ground to first base at an estimated 70 mph. None of the fielders knew how to react -- they must have been surprised he made contact and thought the play was dead.

But a couple of players thought on their feet, namely Wolkow and Kannapolis leadoff man Jordan Sprinkle, who had been on second and was already trying to steal third. By the time GreenJackets first baseman Hayden Friese tried to make the play, Wolkow had safely reached first and Sprinkle had come around to score.

"I look over to our dugout and all of our pitchers in the bullpen and stuff were kind of like laughing, kind of going crazy," Wolkow said. "I was like, 'Oh, I guess maybe I just got a, got a free little single there.' I was probably just as surprised as everybody else."

Wolkow has actually swung one-handed plenty of times before -- in practice. The Cannon Ballers have an iPitch machine they use for batting practice, and the machine’s feeder is automatic and doesn’t stop when players switch in and out of the cage.

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"Usually, when you're walking in after the guy's done hitting, it's going to shoot out a pitch really fast, so you don't have time to really set up," Wolkow said. "So sometimes we'll just walk in and take the bat and just hit the ball like it's nothing and then go through our routine. I was talking to one of our shortstops, Caleb Bonemer (CWS No. 5/MLB No. 88), about like how we always do that and never think much of it, but it's like exactly kind of how it was in the game."

Wolkow was a relatively unlikely candidate to pull off the feat. At 6-foot-8 and 239 pounds, the 2023 seventh-rounder is known for his prodigious power rather than contact skills or foot speed -- although he has stolen a career-high 26 bases this season. But in the wrong place at the right time, he made the improbable happen in one of the most unconventional plays of the season.