Kyle Schwarber overcomes shoe malfunction to make up for costly mistake

It’s always an adventure when Kyle Schwarber’s playing the outfield. Saturday afternoon at Busch Stadium was no exception. Though on one particularly interesting play, it was just as much the fault of his shoe as it was his own awkwardness in the field.

Yes, the Chicago Cubs left fielder had a shoe malfunction. As he drifted back to catch Matt Carpenter’s sixth-inning fly ball, the shoe gave out and Schwarber tumbled to the ground.

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Fortunately for the Cubs, Schwarber was able to recover. He scrambled back to his feet and got in position to make the catch like nothing had gone wrong. That’s the moment we learned Schwarber’s shoe had betrayed him. The game then entered a two-minute shoe delay as Schwarber jogged back to the dugout to retrieve a replacement.

It was a pretty funny scene. Much funnier than the one that played out two innings earlier, when Schwarber completely whiffed on another Carpenter fly ball. That botch resulted in a two-run double and allowed St. Louis to tie the game.

St. Louis had one runner on base when Schwarber lost his shoe. That easily could have been another costly blunder, but credit Schwarber for turning a potential disaster into the most entertaining routine fly ball of the season.

Unfortunately for the Cubs, their overall struggles would continue in Saturday’s game. They fell to St. Louis 8-6 in 10 innings on Kolton Wong’s walk-off home run. The Cubs have lost four in a row while the Cardinals have won four straight.

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Mark Townsend is a writer for Yahoo Sports Have a tip? Email him at bigleaguestew@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!

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