Guardians' Oscar Gonzalez wants to make the fans happy, which leads to error in home debut

Oscar Gonzalez wants to make the home fans happy so much that he just couldn't wait to throw them a souvenir — even if he wasn't supposed to yet.

In the sixth inning of Monday night's 7-3 win over the Kansas City Royals, Gonzalez, a rookie playing in his fourth MLB game and the first at home, made a running catch in right field. He then nonchalantly tossed the ball into the right-field stands and started to job back to the dugout.

The problem: it was only the second out of the inning. And since there was a runner on first, the league rules state the runner in that situation gets two bases. All of a sudden, the potential tying run was 90 feet away instead of holding at first base with the Guardians clinging to a 2-1 lead.

Guardians' chess club: Steven Kwan ignites a trash-talk-fueled chess club in the Guardians clubhouse

As soon as Gonzalez realized his mistake, he crouched down on the ground and put both hands on his head. He just wanted to interact with the home fans and got a little overzealous.

"There’s a lot of emotions happening in these types of games," Gonzalez said after the game through a team interpreter. "I was listening to the crowd and I thought there were [already] two outs, so I wanted to do something with them."

In that moment, a 24-year-old rookie playing in his first game in front of the home fans must feel like every eye in the ballpark is following him, not to mention the potential ramifications on the game. All he wanted was for an immediate chance to remedy the situation.

“Honestly. I was like, ‘Oh, I screwed [up].’ But my mind went to, ‘I hope he hits to me and I can make the inning over,'" Gonzalez said.

Chasing Manny Ramirez: Guardians star Jose Ramirez is chasing Manny Ramirez's franchise RBIs record

Luckily for Gonzalez, Guardians pitcher Zach Plesac recovered and struck out MJ Melendez to end the inning and strand the runner at third.

It allowed the Guardians to have some fun with the situation when Gonzalez got back to the dugout.

"I just asked him, 'I haven't been to Triple-A in a while. Do they make you get three outs there?' joked manager Terry Francona after the game. "It was a little bit easier to laugh after Zach picked him up."

It was certainly a learning moment, and one Gonzalez won't soon forget. And as long as it isn't repeated, the Guardians escaped the situation unscathed.

"I think he's the kind of kid that, hopefully he does learn from it, because you need to," Francona said. "But nobody wanted to beat him over the head. He's conscientious enough that he knew that better not happen."

It actually led to one of Plesac's better moments as a pitcher who has been struggling to find any rhythm recently. Plesac threw a strong outing Monday, limiting the Royals to one run on five hits with five strikeouts in six innings. It was a game he said he "needed." And recovering from Gonzalez's gaffe to strand the runner at third was the highlight moment.

"I mean, nothing came out of it so it was one of those, just kind of smile it off," Plesac said. "There's no — I'm not looking at him like, 'Come on dude you need to do better.' He learned from it, he understood, he knew what he did. We got out of it with no runs, unscathed."

That teachable moment helped to lead to one of the bigger at-bats of the night, when Gonzalez had a chance to make up for it (though he didn't need to, as it only cost Plesac four pitches). After the Royals came back to tie it 3-3 in the top of the eighth, Gonzalez came to the plate with a runner on first in the bottom half of the inning. He lined a single to right-center field, which led to Andres Gimenez's go-ahead three-run home run.

"That's the game of baseball," Plesac said. "You see it all the time, guys make plays in the field that hurt their team or make an error and then they come up in a big situation. It's like that. The way this game works, it's funny how often that happens, guys who do something like that get brought up in a big situation and come through."

Gonzalez also debuted his major league walk-up song Monday night. He chose the SpongeBob SquarePants theme. And just like his desire to make the fans happy by tossing them a souvenir (even an out too early), that's also what led to his song choice.

“Because kids love that song and this is a kid’s game after all," Gonzalez said. "I’ve had it since Triple-A.”

Ryan Lewis can be reached at rlewis@thebeaconjournal.com. Read more about the Guardians at www.beaconjournal.com/sports/cleveland-guardians. Follow him on Twitter at @ByRyanLewis.

This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: Oscar Gonzalez, teammates shrug off funny error in home debut