Besides the knuckler, they also didn’t look at a good split finger fastball. Those thing drop right off the table up at the plate.
Freegards
Excellent point.
Additionally, "cut fastballs" can get quick late movement. I watched Phillies catcher Carlos Ruiz take a 105 mph fastball from the Reds' Aroldis Chapman into right field for a double a few days ago. That was a "flat" fastball, straight as an arrow. Good pitchers can throw in the low 90s but get "movement" on their fastballs that make them difficult to hit. There is nothing "parabolic" about a moving fastball.
FRegards,
LH
Besides the knuckler, they also didn’t look at a good split finger fastball. Those thing drop right off the table up at the plate.
"The split-finger fastball is just a legal spitter . . . Suppose I had my middle finger cut off? I bet you I'd have had one hell of a split-finger fastball."---George Bamberger, former pitching coach and manager, whose own best pitch when he was a minor league pitcher was a spitter he called his Staten Island sinker.