Former Clemson standout Cooper Ingle has only been in the big leagues for a handful of days, but he’s already gotten a rookie mistake out of the way.

Ingle, fresh off being called up by the Cleveland Guardians on June 26, made a costly mental error Tuesday night while playing in the outfield.

The talented 24-year-old — ranked as the No. 63 overall prospect in baseball and the third-best prospect in Cleveland’s system – forgot how many outs there were and threw a live ball into the stands, gifting the Texas Rangers the go-ahead run in their eventual 4-2 victory at Progressive Field in Cleveland.

“Obviously feel terrible, so a pretty embarrassing feeling,” Ingle told reporters after the game. “But having a group of guys that are behind you the whole time definitely helps. Tough situation.”

In just Ingle’s fourth major league game, and second MLB start in the outfield, the contest was tied 2-2 in the top of the seventh inning with a runner on second base and one out. That’s when Ingle caught a routine fly ball hit by Alejandro Osuna for the second out.

Thinking it was the third out to end the inning, Ingle casually tossed the ball over the protective netting into the seats as a souvenir for the fans. As a result, with the ball being ruled dead after Ingle threw it out of play, the runner on second was automatically awarded home plate, giving the Rangers a 3-2 lead.

Ingle owned up to the blunder and knows there’s nothing he can do now but learn from it.

“Obviously learn from it and think about it. It’s not something that makes you feel great, but things like that happen for a reason,” Ingle said. “Learning from those things and moving on and getting better from them – it’s pretty much the only thing you can do.”

Despite what happened, both Ingle’s teammates and manager Stephen Vogt fully supported the top prospect. Vogt told Ingle to “flush it” and move forward.

“I just said, ‘Hey, flush it. Go get a hit for us.’ It’s a mistake. Lost track of the outs, pretty big spot, but we’ll learn from it. Can’t control it once it happens. So, I was like, ‘Flush it,’” Vogt told the media postgame.

“I just want to give credit to the dugout. Every one of his teammates, when he came back in   — same message. You make a mistake like that, you don’t know how your teammates are going to respond. Obviously I’m sure Coop is going to beat himself up about it, but those things happen, and we learn from it, we flush it and we move on.”

Ingle said he personally apologized to starting pitcher Tanner Bibee, who was on the mound at the time of the incident, and Ingle undoubtedly appreciates his teammates staying behind him after the fact.

“I went over and apologized to Bibee,” Ingle said. “If that didn’t happen, he might be able to go further in the game, save the bullpen a little bit. But you know, things happen, and he had my back and all the other guys in the dugout had my back.”

Vogt pointed out that it’s certainly not the first time something like that has happened. Throwing the ball into the stands before the third out isn’t as uncommon of a brain cramp in MLB history as you’d think.

“These things happen,” Vogt said. “Rookie, non-rookie – it’s happened to Hall of Famers. They’ve done it. So, it’s things that happen in the game. We’re going to keep learning, we’re going to keep getting better.”

Ingle went 0-for-4 with three strikeouts in Tuesday’s game, but said he tried not to let the issue in the field linger with him into the batter’s box.

“I tried to do my best to look past it and get to the next pitch and the next at-bat,” he said. “I thought I controlled my at-bat pretty well, and hit the ball hard right at somebody.”

After going 0-for-2 with a walk in his MLB debut on June 26, Ingle collected his first major league hit and first big league RBIs with a two-run single in Cleveland’s 4-3 win over the Seattle Mariners on June 27.

Prior to being called up to the majors, Ingle excelled this year at Triple-A Columbus, hitting .284 with nine doubles, 12 homers, 41 RBIs, a .551 slugging percentage and a .416 on-base percentage over 51 games.

Ingle was drafted in the fourth round (No. 125 overall pick) of the 2023 MLB Draft by the Guardians. He played 281 career minor league games in the Guardians’ system from 2023-26, when he hit .282 with 33 homers, 173 RBIs and a .408 on-base percentage across 984 at-bats.

In three seasons (2021-23) at Clemson, Ingle, a 2023 third-team All-ACC selection, hit .329 with 29 doubles, 14 homers, 81 RBIs, 112 runs, a .476 slugging percentage, .425 on-base percentage and two steals in 126 games (120 starts). He also struck out just 62 times in 483 at-bats.