pitching Page 5 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
Tigers Bring Trevor Rosenthal Back To The Majors For Some Reason
Here’s an alarming bit of news for MLB batters who value their personal safety: Trevor Rosenthal, who bombed out of the Nationals bullpen due to a persistent inability to throw strikes and get outs, is back in the majors, this time with the Detroit Tigers....
Dominant Dodgers Reliever Russell Martin Threw His First Career Strikeout
Some MLB managers might believe that, when the team is down 8-2 and the bullpen is drained, it’s time to give up and send out a position player to pitch. Not Dave Roberts, though. When he and his Dodgers found themselves in that exact situation at the tail end of their series against the Diamondback...
Lucas Giolito, Who Was The Worst Starter In Baseball, Is Now An Ace
It only feels like every strange or new thing that could happen in baseball has already happened. Lucas Giolito, who is currently pitching better than just about any starting pitcher in baseball a year after pitching worse than every other starting pitcher in baseball, is not remotely the first such...
Which Of These Two Battered Pitchers Suffered The More Humiliating Sequence?
Phillies pitcher Jerad Eickhoff got the rudest of welcomes in his start Monday night in Philadelphia, against the Arizona Diamondbacks. A first-pitch leadoff home run is deflating; allowing back-to-back leadoff dingers is downright demoralizing; serving up back-to-back-to-back taters to open up a st...
Brewers Utility Man Hernán Pérez Pitches Delightful, YouTube-Inspired 1-2-3 Inning
Normally I would not ask you to pay attention to a late half-inning in a 16–0 June blowout, where pretty much by definition nothing that happens matters in the slightest. This is no normal half-inning! First of all the pitcher is Brewers utility man Hernán Pérez, making his second appearance on the ...
Trevor Rosenthal Pitching Update: Look Out!
Scattershot Nationals reliever Trevor Rosenthal was sent to the injured list back on April 26, two days after his last outing, another alarming disasterpiece in what is shaping up to be a nightmare of a season. The official line at the time was that Rosenthal had a stomach virus that caused weight l...
Enjoy Or Actively Loathe True Psycho Chris Paddack While You Still Can
San Diego Padres rookie pitcher Chris Paddack got roughed up in his start Tuesday against the Dodgers, needing 92 pitches to get through 4.2 innings, surrendering six runs, and taking the loss. Beyond reinforcing that the Dodgers lineup is a beast—they lead the National League in runs, slugging, and...
The Nationals Are Having A Hard Time Adjusting To Their Self-Imposed Mediocrity
The 13–17 Washington Nationals made the oddly timed decision Thursday night to fire pitching coach Derek Lilliquist, immediately following a 2–1 victory over the St. Louis Cardinals. The Nationals hold the 23rd-ranked team earned run average in baseball, thanks largely to another putrid, horrifying ...
The Trevor Rosenthal Situation Has Gone From Funny To Gloomy To Dangerous
There can’t be many experiences in sports more bewildering and humiliating than the yips, and any player going through something yip-like deserves sympathy, if not pity. In the case of Nationals reliever Trevor Rosenthal, it especially sucks to think that his current season-long inability to throw s...
Nationals Reliever Trevor Rosenthal Is Stuck On Infinity
A fun little quirk of the first few days of a new baseball season is the wild swings of relievers’ statistics. A seventh inning guy who gets roughed up in the wrong spot can spend a week with gruesome numbers; a specialist who serves up a dinger to his lone assignment can spend a night or two with a...
An Actually Useful And Not At All Tedious Guide To Pitching Deadspin
If you’re reading this, it is hopefully because you are interested in pitching a story to Deadspin, and you want to know exactly what a good Deadspin pitch looks like. If all goes well, you will have your answer by the time you reach the bottom of the page and will be fully prepared to send your own...
Angels' Francisco Arcia Makes Baseball History In Demoralizing Ass-Whupping
History was made in Thursday afternoon’s Angels-Athletics game. Surprisingly, it was not made by the Athletics, who beat the absolute shit out of the Angels by the football score of 21–3. No, it was made by Francisco Arcia of the Angels, who became the first MLB player ever to pitch, catch, and smo...
Jose Ramirez Utterly Baffled By Utility Man Brandon Dixon's 10th Straight Curveball
This is wonderful. Reds utility man Brandon Dixon made his first career pitching appearance Monday night, in the ninth inning of an eventual 10-3 loss to the Indians. His pitching line was great: Dixon threw 10 total pitches; no one of them was harder than 74 miles per hour; the slowest came in unde...
Outfielder Carlos Gomez Takes Mound, Pitches Exactly Like Non-Pitcher
The position-player-as-pitcher trend continues piling up numbers at a record pace. Three more position players took the mound Friday night; the total across MLB is now up to 45, by far the most ever for a full season, and it’s still July. One of the recent unfortunate fellows was Rays outfielder Ca...
Too Many Position Players Are Pitching Now
41 position players have pitched in a big-league game this season. By my count, 28 different position players have taken the mound since the start of June. This is too many! A good thing is being spoiled, here....
Wednesday Night Blowouts Produce A Bonanza Of Position Players Taking The Mound
These are truly the dog days of summer. Baseball has slipped into that surreal midseason phase where absolutely nothing seems to matter at any given moment, and the reason to watch is to doze off to the hypnotic lull of half innings breezing by uneventfully. We have hit the part of the year where ev...
D-Backs Catcher Jeff Mathis Pitches, Serves Up A Juicy Homer, Loses
With a depleted bullpen in Sunday’s 16-inning showdown against the Padres, the Diamondbacks turned to backup catcher Jeff Mathis to pitch in a tie game. Seeing a position player pitch is always fun—hey, they’re not supposed to do that!—but it’s not often that they actually determine the outcome of t...
Michael Wacha Blows Ninth Inning No-Hitter For The Second Time In His Career
For the second time in his career, Cardinals pitcher Michael Wacha carried a no-hitter into the ninth inning of a major league baseball game, today at home against the Pirates. And for the second time in his career, a lousy softly-hit single spoiled his shot at history. Three outs away from the 11th...
Kyle Gibson's Slider Is The Sneakiest Pitch In Baseball
Minnesota Twins starter Kyle Gibson didn’t get the win in his seven innings of shutout work Tuesday night against the Royals—the final score was 2-1, Kansas City, in 14 innings—but he did get another opportunity to show off his glorious slider, a strikeout pitch that’s been better at getting swings ...