Rangers’ Rougned Odor uses magic slide to avoid tag (Video)

The Texas Rangers and Toronto Blue Jays are locked into a back-and-forth Game Two, so this run from Roughned Odor could prove valuable.

During the playoffs, when pitching typically dominates, every run scored is important. The same holds true when the two teams involved are offensive juggernauts and going back and forth in the early parts of Game Two.

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With one out in the top of the second inning, Texas Rangers third baseman hit a fly ball to center fielder Kevin Pillar, who owns a fairly decent throwing arm. Rangers’ second basemen Rougned Odor, who was on third base at the time, opted to test it by tagging up and racing home.

As you can see, the play was pretty close at the plate.

I don’t know whether it was some sort of force field technology or Russell Martin’s insistence on using two hands limited his reach, but Odor’s slide was nothing short of magical, recalling The Matrix while avoiding the tag by roughly the length of a hair to make the game 3-1 Texas.

While it’s still early, that run would be pretty important when Toronto scored a pair of their own the following inning, knotting things up at three apiece and basically resetting the game.

After losing game one on Thursday, the Blue Jays are looking to even up the best of five series prior to sending the American League Divisional series Texas. The last thing Toronto wants to do is drop both of their home games before hitting the road and being faced with the task of winning three straight to move on to the ALCS.