What the video here depicts is Cubs right-hander Jake Arrieta — not unlike an illusionist who’s been hired to participate in orientation week at an area liberal arts college — is Jake Arrieta performing a number of unlikely acts simultaneously. One of those acts isn’t impressive, per se, even if it’s somewhat rare — namely, that he’s a pitcher recording a hit of any sort. Data suggests that the league’s pitchers have produced a hit in fewer than 12% of their collective plate appearances this season. That’s roughly the rate at which Steve Nash missed a free throw when he played — an example which illustrates not only (a) the frequency with which pitchers produce base hits, but also (b) the most recent year in which the author followed NBA basketball with considerable interest.

A second, more improbable feature of this episode is how the sort of hit Arrieta’s recording is a home run. Pitchers, as a group this season, have produced only 25 of these — a figure which accounts for just 0.5% of all their collective plate appearances in 2015. Phrased alternatively, pitchers record a home run about once only every 200 plate appearances. Jake Arrieta, here, is recording one home run per every one of his plate appearances. Were he to continue at this pace, he’d hit 200 home runs. Jake Arrieta would be the best player ever.

And yet, further examination reveals that Arrieta has accomplished something even more rare here, in that he’s hit not merely a home run, but an opposite-field home run. This is a relatively uncommon occurrence even for non-pitchers. Indeed, non-pitchers have accounted for only 559 of them total in 2015 — or in just 0.3% of their 171,169 total plate appearances. That’s less often even than a pitcher hits a home run.

Why? For a number of reasons probably. But certainly one of them is because opposite-field home runs generally require a combination both of a certain type of power and certain type of approach. Batters can generally sacrifice some plate coverage, look for fastballs on the inside, and translate a certain percentage of those fastballs into home runs to the pull side. Batters who possess power to all fields, however, create logistical difficulties for opposing pitchers. Such a batter tends not to rely merely on one location or pitch type — and therefore are less vulnerable to different pitch types and pitch locations.

Pitchers, naturally, tend to lack this combination both of power and approach. They typically haven’t possessed these dual qualities ever — and even if they did at one point, they’ve generally been unable to practice them at the highest level, on account of how they’ve been pitching instead. Therefore, it’s not surprising that pitchers have hit only four opposite-field homers this years, including Arrieta’s*. That’s represents only 0.08% of their total plate appearances.

*The other three belong to Tyson Ross (July 2), Francisco Liriano (August 8), and Ryan Vogelsong (September 3).

As the chart below illustrates, pitchers have actually produced 10 fewer opposite-field homers since 2006 than they have no-hitters.