José Altuve Takes Mighty Rip At Pitch That Would Have Knocked A Lefty Batter’s Shoes Off

A sword, as defined by Merriam-Webster, is a "weapon ... with a long blade for cutting or thrusting that is often used as a symbol of honor or authority." A sword, as defined by Rob "Pitching Ninja" Friedman and quantified by Statcast, is "when a pitcher fools a hitter so badly that he forces a non-competitive swing, one where a batter either regrets his choice or can't stop himself from taking a hack that looks so ugly it ends up going viral on social media."

By Statcast's standards, the swing Houston Astros second baseman José Altuve made against a Shohei Ohtani sweeper Tuesday night, on a 1-2 count with two outs in the fifth inning, would not qualify as a sword. It was simply too high-quality: a good swing with pace, that only happened to be at a ball far, far off the plate. But if Altuve felt any good about the swing at its beginning, he regretted it by the end, when a likely chorus of thoughts such as "No, no, no, no, NO " and "Ah, shit" had failed to stop him from following all the way through.

The official title for this video on Baseball Savant simply reads, "Ohtani escapes a jam."