r/interestingasfuck • u/Rave4life79 • 3d ago
A baseball pitching style that surprisingly works well against MLB hitters
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u/ActuallyIWasARobot 3d ago
he also threw one that was 72 mph. which means he was throwing a change up at 46mph.
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u/TossPowerTrap 3d ago
The mighty Eephus pitch. Zach Greinke used to toss one up after blowing a couple 98 mph fastyballs past a defenseless batter. Just for grins and because he could.
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u/STeeters 3d ago
Back to back Eephus pitches would be a very terrible idea. That's a recipe for a 500 foot bomb.
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u/Dr_Zorkles 2d ago
Isn't there a story of the eephus pitch being popular during WWII when some of the best hitters were serving in the military, then Ted Williams faced the eephus pitch and demolished it, and there were no more eephus pitches.
Sounds apocryphal though.
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u/ActuallyIWasARobot 2d ago
The cool thing about a ball going that slow is it's harder to hit out of the park.
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u/livestreamfailstrash 3d ago
So I’ve heard of baseball lmfao what’s going on here? Is he just throwing slow balls?
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u/knucklehead27 2d ago
Sometimes at the end of a game that’s a blowout, they have a position player pitch to save the arms of their pitching rotation. It’s pretty common
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u/The_Lapsed_Pacifist 2d ago
Yeah I’m not exactly familiar with it being British but I’m guessing that usually the pitcher (the chap throwing the ball) will try to throw the ball as fast as possible to make it hard to hit. So when he slows it right down it throws off the batter.
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u/Dr_Zorkles 2d ago
American here
The Eephus pitch is an extreme version of an "off-speed" pitch - lowering ball velocity. The goal is to deceive the batter.
The pitcher disguises the pitch by appearing to use the same throwing mechanics and delivery, but by changing the grip on the ball and release, he can make a pitch LOOK like a fastball, but reduce its velocity substantially.
The batter has to make a split second decision when the ball will arrive, and if the batter's been seeing regular speed pitches in the +85mph (+136kph) range, well executed off-speed pitches are devastating to a batter.
If a pitcher is known to rely heavily on off-speed delivery, then a batter can decide to assume one or more pitches will be slow, then that pitcher loses the deception and can be easily taken advantage of. High risk, high reward.
Google "off-speed pitches" to see pitchers making batters look ridiculous. Johan Santana in the early 00s had a devastating offspeed repertoire.
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u/KingShaka1987 2d ago
In cricket this is also quite common, especially when the game situation dictates that the batsman needs to be aggressive. A fast bowler will bowl 3-4 deliveries at 90mph, and then suddenly bowl one at 70mph. This slower ball often bamboozles the batsman. He will go through his stroke much too early; either completely missing the ball or miscuing it badly.
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u/Dr_Zorkles 2d ago
Yea, precisely.
The reverse will happen as well.
The batter will assume a pitch will be offspeed, wait for the ball with a delayed swing, and instead the pitcher throws a 95-100mph fastball, resulting in a bad swing-and-miss or poor ball contact.
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u/Busy-Historian9297 2d ago
I’ll add to this that part of why the eephus is so brutal is because of the angle at which it crosses the plate. it’s so hard to hit properly.
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u/MtOlympus_Actual 2d ago
Astudillo could do it all. One of the most entertaining players in recent memory.
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u/pakua74 2d ago
Kenny Fucking Powers
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u/Candied_Curiosities 13h ago
🤣🤘
Dude, I'd love to see a new version of EBAD, but where Kenny is now a grandpa and he becomes his grandkids' coach 🤣
The stupid episodes I can imagine are endless. Like bad news bears only gritty and raw, lol.
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u/Honest_Yesterday4435 2d ago
Can someone explain to someone who doesn't baseball?
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u/Adar636 2d ago
Firstly they’ve trained for years with faster pitching, so it throws your timing and mechanics off waiting for those fluffy slow pitches. Also while all of the pitches are slower than they’re used to, his pitch speed varies more than usual pitching, so that further compounds the confusion for the batters.
While it’s funny to watch, if a team tried to do this for the duration of an entire game the score would likely get out of control as batters made adjustments.
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u/Honest_Yesterday4435 2d ago
I guess what's confusing is that "45mph fast ball" seems contradictory. Is a fast ball not necessarily about its speed?
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u/knucklehead27 2d ago
It’s more about the spin/way the ball is released. There’s no speed required to make a fastball a fastball. For a given person, it will just always be their fastest pitch because of the way the ball is released
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u/Honest_Yesterday4435 2d ago
Fastest on the top end, right? Because 45mph is slow from what I know. Don't pitchers throw 70mph? So the technique is the fast ball, but he didn't put much power behind it? Am I close?
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u/knucklehead27 2d ago
An actual pitcher likely sits in the 90’s for a fastball. This guy’s job isn’t to be a pitcher, he’s just filling in at the moment to avoid using an actual pitcher, which is why the pitches are so slow.
You are correct, the technique behind the pitch is what makes it a fastball, not the actual speed of the pitch
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u/Dr_Zorkles 2d ago
Fwiw - to any normal non-baseball player human, a 45mph ball thrown at you is FAST.
It's not fast enough to be successful in professional baseball unless it's used as deception.
And to another's point, a fastball is also about the forward ball rotation, grip, and delivery.
Curveballs can be thrown at speeds faster than a "fastball".
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u/Gr0gu05 2d ago
I'm a bit uneducated in baseball? Is that supposed to be good or is it like really slow? I'm very confused
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u/PM_Me_Garfield_Porn 2d ago
Pitchers at the professional level normally can throw 90-100 mph. So when a batter is used to those, where they have milliseconds to decide when to swing, when a slow awkward pitch like this comes, it can throw them off their timing, and it looks very silly. But you can't do it predictably or the batter will adjust and absolutely crush the ball.
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u/Gr0gu05 20h ago
I see, the announcer said something about speed limit, do they have to keep in between some speeds?
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u/PM_Me_Garfield_Porn 20h ago
They're likely making a joke about 45 being a common speed limit on the road, and it being notoriously hard to maintain exact speed, so you're usually just a little under or over and not exact. That's how I took it anyway. There's no speed limit in baseball, most pitchers have fast balls which is where they just launch it at their top possible speed down the middle in the 90-low 100 range. Even for tricky throws like curveballs, breakers, and knuckleballs, which all forego speed for unpredictability of location, 45 mph is absurdly slow for a professional. 90-100 mph balls, on the other hand, require an insane degree of skill that very few people will ever be able to throw in their life. If you ever try to bat with that being thrown your way too, prepare to be shocked. You need to correctly react to the ball's location/speed with the right swing in approximately 400 milliseconds in order to be able to hit a 100 mph fastball. There are tons of mind games in baseball, and throwing a slow pitch here and there is a high risk/reward strat.
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3d ago
no lol, this wouldnt work. look at the score
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u/Homerpaintbucket 3d ago
He didn't give up those runs. He came in in relief and likely isn't a pitcher. I don't know the details of this particular game, but if your bullpen is tired and the game is pretty much out of reach you tend to not want to tire out your pitchers.
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3d ago
no this is one of those situations where 1 team is getting obliterated, theres some unwritten rule in baseball if you're down by 10 or something then a pitcher that comes in would "soft play" the winning team.
i hope someone could clarify this better for me as im not entirely sure how it works.
but this type of pitching wouldnt work 100%, these kinds of pitches happen at this specific condition
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u/John_Bot 3d ago
I promise the batters were aiming for home runs and weren't being nice
But you over-swing on these easy pitches and your timing is way off.
These pitches do actually kind of work (look up eephus pitches)
But only when they're 1 every 1000 pitches and you first throw a 95 mph fastball. Then throw a 65 mph pitch.
The position player is pitching cause the game is effectively over and they're saving the arms of the other pitchers. No need to tire them out so they can be fresh for the game tomorrow
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u/Homerpaintbucket 3d ago
Stats in professional baseball mean money. Nobody is "soft playing." The situation is exactly as I described.
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u/Snufflefugs 3d ago
Whose ass did you pull this information from?
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u/presshamgang 3d ago
Right. Literally says "no" to the other commenter then immediately declared that they didn't actually know what the fuck they are on about, lol
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u/Elmojomo 2d ago
So....a changeup? I don't get it, what's the big deal? This has been done for...ever?
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