Posted on 05/21/2018 7:19:24 AM PDT by simpson96
Cardinals rookie pitcher Jordan Hicks came as close as humanly possible to throwing literal fireballs against the Phillies on Sunday.
He hit 105 mph with the fastball twice, which tied the MLB mark with Aroldis Chapman for the fastest-recorded pitch. He also broke out 104 mph two other times in his 1.1 innings of work.
The Cardinals dugout couldn't believe what they were watching.
As if the 105 mph heat wasn't crazy enough, Hicks had plenty of movement too. It was ridiculous.
(Excerpt) Read more at msn.com ...
Asking. I don’t know. No radar guns yet.
Not here...It's very quick...
In fact, so much so that I often get postings that won't be posted until the day after tomorrow...
He hit 105 mph with the fastball twice...Batter: "Ump, did you see that?"
Hats for bats...
:-)
Mark
When I played as a kid growing up the faster the pitcher was the more I liked it. If I made decent contact it was going to travel a good piece. I caught a guy on my team in little league and had to use a batting glove and a huge sponge in the catchers mitt and it still hurt at times when he brought the heat.
Watching the pitcher and knowing his tells and stealing signs helps a lot. In later years the guy I caught in little league played on a different team in senior league and we were playing them. I always picked a lighter wooden bat, usually 31-32 inches at the most instead of the aluminum bats.
We had a runner on first and this guy threw a heater high and inside and I swung on it because the guy on first was stealing second and he made it. I knew the next pitch was going to be a breaking ball outside corner and waited and it was a ball. Next up was fastball outside corner of the plate low and away, knew it was coming and turned on it and drove it off the left field fence for a double and RBI.
I was standing on second and he said how did you do that? I said I caught you for a year I knew what was coming. He just grinned and struck out the rest of the side that inning. He later came within a point of making the Pittsburgh Steelers on their depth chart. I hated hitting really slow ball pitchers, messed my timing up.
“when he batted right handed”.....Huh? Ted hit from the left side. What am I missing here?
I believe they see a pattern on the ball that is made by the spin of a particular pitch, not necessarily reading the rotation, per se. I may be wrong though.
There are hitters who have said that when they are ‘in the zone’ they can see the seams and make contact between them!
Maybe it is just a pattern, but they certainly believe they see the individual seams.
“I believe they see a pattern on the ball that is made by the spin of a particular pitch, not necessarily reading the rotation, per se. I may be wrong though.”
I wouldn’t know. I can’t even drive at night when it’s raining because I can’t see the painted lines in the road.
Thanks. Ted Williams did bat left handed and did everything else right handed.
Besides being a great athlete, batting left handed and being right handed with a dominant right eye coupled with his at least 20/10 at least vision, he was an incredible batter.
According to Joe Montana, a fairly good pro QB, being left eyed and throwing a football or hitting a golf ball right handed was an advantage as well as batting left handed with a dominant right eye.
Thanks again, Dave
I played catch once with someone who was a pitcher drafted out of college and what surprised me was that I could actually hear the ball coming toward me. It really has a sizzling sound! Quite scary, and I had no interest in doing it again, even though he wasn’t throwing that hard. He could hit mid nineties with a lot of movement. He really threw more “junk” than “gas”.
Let’s all remember Steve Dalkowski, perhaps the fastest pitcher ever, but never made the bigs because of his lack of control.
He pitched in the sixties before the radar gun was common. Estimates are that he likely regularly threw in the mid-100’s and sometimes got into the upper 100’s.
Yes. Many stories about him out there.
His contemporaries said he was *way* faster than any other pitcher they had seen.
But he had absolutely no control.
He never made the bigs, and became a terrible alcoholic.
Last I heard he was still alive, but doesn't really remember much of anything any more.
Nolan Ryan was measured at 10 feet from the plate
So by today's standards, he would have been at 108mph
When Pete Rose is asked who the most difficult pitcher he faced was, he always says Bob Gibson.
He hit both Gibson and Ryan, so that somewhat surprised me.
Gibson was fast, but no way he was over 100mph.
Gibson was known to be very "intimidating". (His own teammates were scared of him on game days, he was so intense). Glaring at batters and brushing them back, so maybe that is what Rose meant.
Or Gibson threw hard, but had tremendous movement.
if I ever meet Rose, I'll ask him.
Gibson
Brock
Cepeda
Carlton
Mccarver
Good days of my 10th year
Gibson was accurate
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.