So listen. Smyly didn’t have his best day, but that’s okay. It wasn’t a bad day or anything. In times like these, we should take comfort in the parts of the game that are fun, even if the sum of their parts didn’t go our way. I’m obviously talking about Jose Altuve. Particularly, a pitch Smyly threw to him in the fifth inning.

Altuve is short. We get it, but one of the fun things we can see at Brooks Baseball is where Pitchf/x draws his strike zone. For Altuve, the top of the zone is 2.97 feet off the ground. Which is kind of amazing. That had my attention all week. Then, Smyly threw a really high pitch and it made me wonder if that was the highest pitch anyone has ever thrown to Altuve!

Here’s the pitch:

It’s 5.1 feet off the ground, according to Pitchf/x. Graphically:

Based on data available at Baseball Savanat, we can find 15 pitches in Altuve’s career that were higher. Several were intentional walk/pitchouts, which don’t count. The highest real one came on April 12, 2013. It was 5.985 feet off the ground! So Smyly didn’t break a record, but he was close. Enjoy: