If you wanted to intentionally walk someone, you'd just pitch way outside where he couldn't hit it anyway. If you wanted to hit someone intentionally, you'd rarely aim a fastball up by his head. It looks like he was trying to throw low on the inside and the ball slipped out of his hand.

Ah.

I asked because it looked like the dude originally WAS going to storm the pitcher's mound. I was thinking he'd do that if he thought the pitcher had hit him on purpose.

Yeah, if someone intentionally threw at a batter's head, he's pretty likely to rush the mound, and even if it's an accident, he's sure to take offense. In this case I think Batista took an extra wide turn to give the pitcher a scare so he'd be a little more careful next time.

Seemed effective.

Also, I know American baseball fans/managers/owners don't consider violent outbursts anything of note, but based on what little I know of Japanese culture, it seems like this sort of thing would be frowned upon and more harshly dealt with?

They deal with confrontation in other ways https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G7D8aDp3RUs

That's Korea.

SAME THING

whoops, im usually good at avoiding dupes my bad