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[EviLore]

One of the best performances in baseball history.

 

[Liopleurodon]

 

[EviLore]

 

[GateofD]

i don't follow baseball, and seen his name pop up a few times everyone saying he's a good fellow. But had no idea he was actually GOAT

 

[mitch1971]

 

[DKehoe]

I know fuck all about baseball. But the sensation of the ball hitting the bat just right for a home run must be incredibly satisfying.

 

[GloveSlap]

i don't follow baseball, and seen his name pop up a few times everyone saying he's a good fellow. But had no idea he was actually GOAT

I don't watch or follow it either, but even i said damn reading the title.

I love how the homers break up the pitching in that compilation. It's like he's rubbing their faces it in by showing how "easy" it is to smash the ball and then it's just strike...strike...strike.

 

[MastAndo]

Especially given the context (a deciding game of a postseason series), I'd venture to say it's one of the greatest single-game performances in all of sports history. Simply incredible.

Fun factoid though - on 6/23/71, Rick Wise of the Phillies threw a no-hitter and also hit 2 home runs. It was against an awful Reds team in a regular season game, so it doesn't quite compare, but I was surprised to hear something similar had happened before.

 

[MrA]

to help understand japanese baseball


everything involving japan and baseball is insane, Mr.Ohtani might play in the US, but he's a product of this system

 

[HeisenbergFX4]

I know fuck all about baseball. But the sensation of the ball hitting the bat just right for a home run must be incredibly satisfying.

I think hitting a round ball with a round bat and making it go where you want it while someone is throwing it 100 mph is the hardest thing to do in sports

This is what it looks like to the hitter, watching on TV is very misleading on how easy it looks

 

[GateofD]

also I think he had a major arm surgery like 1-2 years ago, and was in a not so strong spot for a while, so him managing to come back from that and do this is pretty neat.

 

[Vestal]

Can actually say that he single handedly won the game. Absolutely insane performance.

 

[MrA]

I think hitting a round ball with a round bat and making it go where you want it while someone is throwing it 100 mph is the hardest thing to do in sports

This is what it looks like to the hitter, watching on TV is very misleading on how easy it looks

Just the numbers behind it are bonkers,
.4 seconds to make a decision and act on it, about the same amount of time as blinking

 

[Dr Bass]

I think hitting a round ball with a round bat and making it go where you want it while someone is throwing it 100 mph is the hardest thing to do in sports

This is what it looks like to the hitter, watching on TV is very misleading on how easy it looks

I actually think that camera angle makes it look faster than it is. It actually looks like it's "speeding up" as it crosses the plate because of the way the camera lens distorts the image. The ball loses about 10% of its speed by the time it's crossed the plate. It's similar to tennis where a 120 mph serve takes under half a second to get to you, and the distance in the court is a bit longer than a mound to home plate, and some of those pros can serve over 150 mph. But if you watch court level camera views it (again) looks like the ball is gaining speed as it gets close to you. It often makes the game look super human, but it's just not the case. For those who actually play there is nothing outrageous going on in any of this. Yeah these guys are the best of the best but they are still just normal people with normal human faculties.

That said, hitting a 100mph pitch has to be one of the toughest things in sports. Coming back to tennis, returning certain serves that are basically impossible to even get a racquet on has to be up there. But then again a bat is much smaller hitting surface than a tennis racquet.

 

[Alex Anderson]

Amazing performance but I'm still chapped over the yankees losing to them in a series that should have been closer than what it was without Boone putting in a guy who hadn't pitched for a month in Game 1 and the comedy of errors in Game 5 i think it was. I'm not saying the Yankees would have WON but it easily could been NY up 3-2.

I was kinda glad Shohei had done nothing in the playoffs before that game.

He is such a unicorn. A 6'4" Japanese guy who is fast, hits twice as well as any other Japanese import before him who is also an ace pitcher. HOW DO YOU EXIST?? I've seen a lot of japanese pro wrestlers that tall who aren't coordinated for shit.

 

[Wheeljack539]

Amazing performance but I'm still chapped over the yankees losing to them in a series that should have been closer than what it was without Boone putting in a guy who hadn't pitched for a month in Game 1 and the comedy of errors in Game 5 i think it was. I'm not saying the Yankees would have WON but it easily could been NY up 3-2.

I was kinda glad Shohei had done nothing in the playoffs before that game.

He is such a unicorn. A 6'4" Japanese guy who is fast, hits twice as well as any other Japanese import before him who is also an ace pitcher. HOW DO YOU EXIST?? I've seen a lot of japanese pro wrestlers that tall who aren't coordinated for shit.

He's pretty much an anime/manga character in real life.

 

[Arsic]

I don't follow baseball but he is undeniably the "Michael Jordan, Wayne Gretzky, etc" of his time and sport.

Absolutely a legend.

 

[LiquidMetal14]

That is some super impressive stuff. The guys worth whatever they're paying him

 

[AJUMP23]

Really an amazing performance.