The Javy Báez Highlight Factory Was Humming Last Night

It’s cool when Cubs star infielder Javy Báez makes an incredible defensive play, and it is also cool when he sends a baseball howling into the sky. What’s really cool is when he does both of those things in the same game.

We’ll start with the dinger because, god damn, it was something else. Baez swung the bat so hard I’m surprised it didn’t snap on his back, and it resulted in a 481-foot bomb to center field that left the stadium entirely:

That’s the meanest thing anyone has ever done to a hanging breaking ball. Báez followed that up with this nifty grab at shortstop:

He was just one slick tag and one impossibly graceful slide away from the Javy Báez Cycle. We’ll get there someday.