Rougned Odor

12:15 PMLast night, I got a text from a friend who used to cover sports in Dallas.

He was relaying a message that a former colleague of his had told him a long time ago about Venezuelan second baseman Rougned Odor. The message said, “literal scouting report: ‘don’t [expletive] with him’ … never been more accurate.”

Odor’s punch to Jose Bautista’s jaw that incited a brawl during a Rangers-Blue Jays game in Arlington, Texas, Sunday night was quickly memed, for obvious reasons.

But Odor has been about this life for a while. Back in 2011, he had no qualms taking on three dudes after an incident in a minor league game.

Sure, it was a late slide, but whatever was said became enough to trigger Odor’s now signature move: the shove that clears room for the right cross. If only Joey Bats had been studying game tape of fights of the bus leagues instead of opposing pitchers.

The relative irony here is that Odor is no stranger to late slides. Last year, his antics on the basepaths were subject to frequent scrutiny with one particular slide in a game in October that helped the Texas Rangers to the playoffs being an example. He apologized at the time, but no one forgot it when Odor decided to come to blows.

blah, blah, something about glass houses… pic.twitter.com/Tdekg2c2Kq

— Brandon Morrow (@2Morrow23) May 16, 2016

Of course, this likely has something to do with Bautista’s bat flip from last year’s American League divisional game, an event more commonly referred to in my household as “the greatest moment of the 2015 MLB season.”

[mlbvideo id=”515660383?topic_id=6479266″ width=”400″ height=”224″ /]

We’re not ones to promote violence, but for the sake of analysis, we will look at this scuffle frame by frame. The words of the announcer say it all (“Whoooaaa!”) , but visually, so much happened here.

https://vine.co/v/i0AgZlm5w9t

To begin with, Bautista clearly presumed himself to be at an advantage as he was both wearing a helmet and had both hands available. Little did he know, this wasn’t anything close to Odor’s first rodeo (Texas joke!) and managed to get his whole face rocked to the degree that both his sunglasses and lid go flying. It’s rather remarkable. That initial shove from Odor is quite literally a veteran move and shifted the balance of the pugilists completely.

Easily the most impressive part of this punch is that he managed to land it under and around the earflap while not hitting the helmet itself. That and the fact that his chain did a full 360 on his neck while he was administering said piecing.

To be fair to Bautista, this punch didn’t knock him out, only stunned him slightly. Of course, this is all a stupid huge waste of time in baseball, as all fights are, but that was one of the better landed punches we’ve seen in the sports world in some time.