Were Jason Marquis(notes) of the Arizona Diamondbacks and Josh Thole(notes) of the New York Mets sharing a psychic moment Sunday afternoon?

When Marquis hit Thole with a pitch in the leg during the fourth inning, both players crumpled to the ground simultaneously. But Marquis wasn't having sympathy pains. Watch the unhappy coincidence:

Never seen that before.

An inning earlier, Marquis figured he simply had sustained a painful bruise after being hit on the right shin with a one-hop line drive. So he kept on pitching. He even took a turn at bat in the bottom half of the inning. And then he went out to pitch again.

The injury turned out to be more than a bruise, but Marquis wouldn't realize it until the fourth inning, as he crumpled to the ground in pain after following through on a pitch to Thole.

Incredibly, Marquis had been playing on a broken leg.

"The pain was enough I could deal with to stay out there. I just felt something pop and (team physician Dr. Michael Lee) said it completed the break," [Marquis said.]

Marquis, who was acquired by the Diamondbacks for the pennant drive just before the trade deadline, will miss at least 4-6 weeks with the fracture. The D-backs won the game 5-3 and maintain a two-game lead in the NL West, but this is a bummer for team and pitcher.

Marquis joins an elite club of athletes noted for playing with broken legs — the NBA's Willis Reed and the NFL's Jack Youngblood also are charter members — but he probably loses a chance to pitch in the playoffs.

If the world were a fair place, Adam Sandler would add him to the next version of the "Chanukah Song."

But it's not really fair.

"I was put on a good position coming over here," said Marquis, acquired in a July 30 trade from Washington. "I finally was getting the results I had wanted to, so to finish on this note. Hopefully it's not the end."

Marquis seemed to be shaking it off after Angel Pagan(notes) hit him with a comebacker in the top of the third. The injury really seemed part of history when Marquis finished his own at-bat in the bottom half of the inning. By the fourth, it was like, "What injury?"

After throwing 13 pitches with a fractured leg, Marquis had a Dave Dravecky-like moment, though less horrible of course.

Jeff Sullivan of SB Nation created an animation of the moment, along with an accompanying caption: "Baseball is so weird."

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