If you’re the sort of person who possesses a Y chromosome — and the anatomical features that come along with same — you’re very likely also the sort of person who understands intimately what sort of pain Brewer catcher Jonathan Lucroy experienced directly after this encounter with a foul ball off the bat of Rays outfielder Matt Joyce in the sixth inning of Tuesday night’s contest between Tampa Bay and Milwaukee.
And you’re too late – Eduardo Nunez is on the way.
Okay, enough with the Bon Jovi crap. It’s really the wrong music for this GIFtasm from River Avenue Blues. More likely, you have circus music going through your head as you appreciate the beauty that is the infield-single-man-down. Though circus music doesn’t quite provide the correct background for the violence that was done to Ramiro Pena. Maybe something booming and a little whimsical. Maybe dancehall?
Also, whatever the soundtrack, this seems like a uniquely baseballish event. Maybe it’s just getting caught up in the glory, but doesn’t baseball seem like the best place to find iconic moments like this? I’m thinking of that baseball bouncing out of Ryan Raburn’s glove, or the time Jose Canseco brained the ball over the wall, or maybe even that bird Randy Johnson killed.
Baseball: where ridiculous happens more often than any other sport.
H/T: Jonah Keri
It should be noted, first and foremost, that it was my initial instinct to title this post “Kenley Jansen’s Windswept Cutter,” because, if Kenley Jansen’s cutter looks like anything, it looks like a regular fastball being intercepted by a strong Northerly crosswind. Unfortunately, “intercepted by a strong wind” isn’t what windswept means — nor, so far as I can tell, is there any word that means such a thing. I think you’ll agree with me, bespectacled reader, that this reflects poorly on our Dear Language.
So, that’s Issue No. 1.
Issue No. 2 is that Kenley Jansen’s cut fastball — what with all this as-if-being-blown-by-the-wind movement — is emasculating. The specific one you see here is from Saturday night’s game between the Dodgers and Astros. The batter is Chris Johnson. The count? 1-0. His (i.e. Chris Johnson’s) emotion after swinging? Instant regret.
Per the Pitch F/x data from Brooks Baseball, this pitch from Jansen was thrown at 90 mph with 1.8 inches of glove-side run and 8.0 inches of “rise.” In fact, the pitch directly preceding this one — another cutter — was thrown both faster and with more movement. That it looked less impressive on camera is a testament both to (a) the importance of camera angle to how we perceive a pitch and (b) how a batter’s reaction (in this case, the instant regret of Chris Johnson) can also color our perception of a pitch’s quality.
Whatever the variables, they all conspired here to create something that — much like every Merchant Ivory Production — a baritoned narrator would likely describe as “breathtaking.”
In case you missed it, please be advised, reader, that the Mets continued their important research in the field of Ways to Lose last night, falling 9-8 to the Braves in 10 innings after not only conceding a two-run lead in the bottom of the ninth, but then, in a truly inspired flight, losing the game on a walkoff balk.
Reliever D.J. Carrasco delivered the coup de grâce, but it would be unforgivable not to recognize the contributions of Francisco Rodriguez, who allowed the ninth-inning, game-tying home run to Brooks Conrad, and also to Lucas Duda for mishandling a Jordan Schafer grounder to extend the inning and put runners on first and third for Jason Heyward.
The balk itself, you’ll notice, isn’t particularly grievous — but a balk nonetheless. Truly, though, the star of this particular show is Heyward, whose excited gesture back to home-plate umpire James Hoye and subsequent fist pump are stirring in the best possible way.
There are seminars on race, gender, and sexuality at universities all over this American nation, and yet none of them, to my knowledge, has ever produced a compelling taxonomy of the Phillie Phanatic.
As regards the human portrayer of the Phanatic, both video evidence and the internet suggest that it’s likely a heterosexual man.
The footage you see here is from the bottom of the eighth of last (Tuesday) night’s contest between San Diego and Colorado. On a 1-1 pitch to Rockie rookie Chris Nelson, Padre rookie reliever Evan Scribner threw basically the dictionary definition of a yakker.
The pitch, according to Pitch F/x data from Brooks Baseball, was thrown at 71 mph, had 4.7 inches of glove-side run and 11.2 of drop — this, relative to the major-league averages for a curve of 77, 5.8, and 6.0. Scribner’s averages, for reference, are as follows: 71.1, 6.1, 9.8. In other words, he’s generally throwing it slower and, consequently, with more depth, than an “average” curve. He threw three on Tuesday, but this was the deepest by, like, four inches.
While it may or may not be the case that Scribner’s curve is actually effective in terms of getting outs in the majors, it’s certainly a pleasure to watch… over and over and over. Big, bending curves like his are, for me, the baseballing equivalent of a young Sophia Loren in that my first impulse is to try and make a baby with it. Beyond that, Nelson’s reaction adds to the pleasure of this tableau — especially considering that the pitch is called a strike.
It looks like Scribner’s currently throwing the curvepiece ca. 38% of the time now, so, if you’re watching a Padre game and he (i.e. Scribner) called upon, you’re more than likely to see him.
In the event that you haven’t heard, allow NotGraphs to inform you that Saturday afternoon saw Toronto infielder Mike McCoy make his major-league pitching debut, throwing a perfect inning of relief in the Blue Jays’ 16-4 loss to the division-rival Boston Red Sox.
Nine of McCoy’s pitches were classified as knuckleballs — not actually because they were knuckleballs, but because, as Dan Brooks tells us, they were thrown so slowly that Pitch F/x — like most parents — just didn’t understand.
It appears as though McCoy broke more than Pitch F/x, too. Of those same 12 pitches thrown by McCoy, three received swing-and-misses — i.e. roughly three times the major-league average of 8.4%.
Here are those pitches:
1. A 1-0 pitch to Carl Crawford:
UPDATE: Pitch F/x savant Mike Fast confirms what our better selves suspected — namely, that the above is not a splitter. Still, it’s 99 Sexy mph. And Brad Hawpe has no idea what’s happening.
The footage you see here is from the bottom of the sixth inning of last night’s Rockies-Padres game.
According to the Pitch F/x data (pitch id #321), this is Ubaldo Jimenez striking out Brad Hawpe on a 98.7 mph split-fingered fastball with 4.2 inches of arm-side run and 8.8 inches of sink.
Per the Pitch F/x data available at the site (which you can access by clicking “Show Averages” at Jimenez’ Pitch F/x page), the league-average splitter is thrown at about 85 mph, with ca. 5 inches of run and 3 or 4 inches of rise. (Predictably, Jimenez’ version is a bit more intense: his averages are 89.1, 4.6, and 5.9, respectively.)
Whatever’s going on here, it’s obvious that some manner of misclassification has occurred — either by Pitch F/x for calling the pitch a splitter, or by science for suggesting that Ubaldo Jimenez is human.
There are two sorts of sporting bloggers in this world: those who do, and those who do not, know how to make a GIF. Having recently joined the lowest rung of the former camp, I possess that zeal unique to converts.
In this edition of Hot GIF, I’ve endeavored to capture the league’s five best sliders. The idea, I suppose — although I can’t be certain, really — is to get a sense of what an excellent slider looks like. By “best,” in this case, I mean “the top-five sliders by runs above average per hundred thrown, with something like a hundred (or more) thrown” (which leaderboard you can see above and here).
When capturing the above footage, I’ve tried to meet the following criteria as closely as possible, so’s to limit any visual variables:
• Pitcher facing same-handed batter.
• Pitch receives swing and miss.
• Camera straight-on from center field.
• Footage as recent as possible.
After the jump, you can find the GIFs of each pitcher above throwing his slider. Give the page a bit to load, probably. And, click on any image to watch just that GIF by itself.
This GIF — from the bottom of the first inning of Friday night’s contest between Arizona and Washington — depicts reliever J.J. Putz doing to Joe Saunders roughly the same thing that Saunders himself does to the Diamondbacks every time he pitches.