Brian Wilson Has a Filthy… Two Seamer

Swing, miss, get hit in the butt.

Brian Wilson threw this pitch.

It started in the strike zone, going, oh, about 95 miles per hour, and ended up in the dirt behind Jamey Carroll. Strike three.

Is this fair?

Strange thing, though, even though Wilson has talked about adding the pitch, he’s not throwing it a ton. At least, not enough to show up on either pitch f/x classification system on this site. In fact, it doesn’t show up on most classification systems.

They can be forgiven – Wilson’s regular fastball does move a lot anyway. Take a look at Joe Lefkowitz’s Pitch f/x tool and it says that Wilson threw nine fastballs and five sliders that evening. But those fastballs weren’t all created equal. Check out the the fastballs that showed the most movement, those last two blue dots on the left. Those fastballs moved 11 inches horizontally. He threw three fastballs that also moved about 11 inches vertically. His average fastball has been moving about six inches horizontally and seven vertically, so we’re zooming in on that filthy, filthy pitch now. He might have thrown as much as three of them that evening.

One final picture to help bring this home. You see that blue box on the bottom right corner of this strike zone plot? That’s the pitch, at least where it crossed the plate.

To recap:
1) The pitch moved double digits vertically and horizontally.
2) The pitch left his hand at about 95 MPH.
3) The pitch started in the strike zone, belt-high, middle-ish.
4) The pitch crossed the plate at the very bottom, very inside corner of the strikezone.
5) The pitch ended up behind the batter, about knee-level.

That’s gotta go on some leaderboard as one of the filthiest pitches ever.

H/T: Grant at McCovey Chronicles