Only one solution

The topic of safeguarding baseball pitchers from line drives to the head came up again this weekend after Tampa's Alex Cobb was hit in the right ear by Eric Hosmer's shot in the fifth inning of the Rays' 5-3 win over Kansas City. (Warning: video might be unsettling to some viewers.)

Cobb became the fifth major league pitcher to get hit in the head by a batted ball since last September. In three of the five incidents, the pitchers were seriously injured. One of them -- Brandon McCarthy -- needed life-saving surgery after he was hit in the left ear in a Sept. 5, 2012 game between the Oakland A's and the Los Angeles Angeles of Anaheim and has not fully recovered.

The obvious solution is for pitchers to wear a special helmet while on the mound. Easton has already come up with a prototype (see story from Wired.com here) that would fit underneath a player's cap. Pitchers might be adverse to the idea, but the point is to prevent them from suffering serious injury when the ball is hit right at them.

Hopefully, Major League Baseball will mandate the use of this or another style of headgear before another pitcher suffers a major injury by being struck by a line drive.