This is Miguel Cabrera’s solo shot off of Jose Cisnero yesterday.

The pitch: A 1-0, 79-mph, get-me-over curveball that hung for so you’d think it was sitting on a tee adjusted to lower thigh-level.

The swing: So frustratingly pretty, controlled and effective. He’s so freaking serene as the pitch is released. (It’s probably fairly easy to exude that sort of confidence when you have the ability to make playing an extremely difficult game look laughably easy.) It’s beautiful; a conservative little load, an efficient stride, a slight hitch of the hands before the left foot gets down, and holy crap … once that front foot gets down, just watch his freaking hands. That is 100% pure, uncut swingpr0n. And mmm, that extension and high finish. ‘Tis a glorious sight.  My favorite thing is that after all of this beauty and baseball destruction, Cabrera is just like, “Hmph. Crushed another one,” on his way to going 4-for-4 with 6 RBI.

JUST ANOTHER DAY AT THE OFFICE.

The velocity off the bat: 105.6 mph

The elevation angle: 26.3º

True distance: 412 feet

The verdict: You might be wondering why I picked a bomb that was only hit 412 feet, in a band box of a ballpark, against a pitching staff that is awful at best. The answer to that, is the ease with which Cabrera does this. Sure, he can make fielding, running and staying out of trouble look difficult at times, but this is ridiculous. It’s even more ridiculous because he catches this pus off the end of the bat and still hits a laser off the Crawford Boxes.

This is Chris Davis’ three-run rainmaker off of Jake McGee on April 2nd.

The pitch: A first pitch, letter-high, 91 mph fastball. AKA: A mistake.

The swing: Like this, but left-handed.

 The velocity off the bat: 102.1 mph

The elevation angle: 30.5º

The distance (horizontally): 396 feet

The distance (vertically): This ball broke through the roof of The Trop, bounced off the moon, burst into flames on its fall back to Earth, broke a second hole in the Trop’s roof, and landed in the right field bleachers as a smoldering pile of horsehide, wool and yarn.

The verdict: That is torque, my friends. And phenomenal brute strength. But also torque. Goddamn does he make it look effortless.

If you were watching the Reds vs. Angels game this afternoon, you might have noticed that Chris Heisey hit a two-run homerun off of Joe Blanton.

What you might not have noticed, was that Heisey’s homerun ball ended up dotting an unsuspecting bespectacled gentleman right in between the eyes. 

This is innocence, bewilderment and pain, encapsulated in a two-second GIF that will repeat for eternity (if you allow it to).

THE BEES!!! THEY’RE EVERYWHERE!!!

You’ve probably seen this GIF a few times by now. If you’re like me, you have the image URL bookmarked, click on it (almost) every morning, blow it up nice and big in a Google Chrome window, stare at it for three minutes or so, hum “Yakety Sax”, chuckle, and feel less bad about the time you walked face-first into that sliding glass door at that house party.

I’ve probably watched it over 1000 times. As I type now, it’s running on a loop above this text. I can’t look away.

Somewhere around viewing #783, I noticed something.

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