pitches - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

The off-putting history of Spencer Strider, and the incredible weirdness of the NHL AwardsI won’t pretend what follows makes any sense. It is simply a matter of taste, and my tastes have warped and mutated often into a territory I can no longer explain. If you’re an Atlanta baseball fan, Spencer Strider is a titan walking among men. Cobb County probably has dubbed it “Strider Day,” a gam...

They say a good fastball is still the best pitchIt still amazes me how quickly a baseball playoff series, especially one of the seven-game variety, can pivot. ...

For the Houston Astros, it can be as simple as one pitchI am guilty, as well as many others, of thinking of the Astros as the same Godzilla offense as they were in 2017, whatever means they used to get there. I hear Astros and think whatever batter they’re sending to the plate sends thousands of Tokyo residents scurrying for cover. And the Astros offense...

Sticky substances are back in fashion for the postseason, it seems

In a little over a year since MLB enabled umpires to routinely check pitchers for illegal foreign substances, there have been a few ejections, pitchers making scenes by stripping to their undergarments, and above all else, there’s been a drastic drop in some pitchers’ spin rates....

60 is such a round number

It was a number we didn’t even think about when we were kids. Only if you were born in a specific time, where you were an impressionable youth between 1998-2003, would 60 seem reasonable, or even reachable, or something to be expected to happen semi-regularly. It was never even talked about....

The most uncomfortable at-bat ever

I join many others in giving MLB hitters a hard time. The need to lift and drive has added an untenable amount of strikeouts to the game, and it can be frustrating watching guys simply pound contact right into a gaggle of fielders shifted over. But we also try to defend them as best we can, given th...

Imagine if Josiah Gray develops an elite fastball

Coming into the 2022 season, Josiah Gray was Washington’s No. 3 prospect. He was a top-100 prospect throughout all of last season when he was dealt to the Nationals as part of the Trea Turner/Max Scherzer deal. In his limited time with the Dodgers and Nats last season, Gray showed flashes of excelle...

Y’see, this is the problem

Most of the discussion about baseball this year has been about the baseball itself, or the lack of runs being scored. Rob Mains at BP expertly broke down just how big the offense problem in MLB these days, when you pull it out from under the shield of extra innings/Manfred Man. These discussions lea...