There Is No Nicer Pitch Than This 69-MPH Quick Pitch

Sometimes a batter is in there stretching out like he owns the place, and gets fooled by a quick pitch. That’s pretty fun. Baseball should have lots of those. But Saturday’s Mets-Brewers game featured an entirely different kind of quick pitch—a slow as hell one, thrown almost by accident.

Mets outfielder Michael Conforto reached on an infield single in the top of the fifth inning. After a Devin Mesoraco strikeout, Adrian Gonzalez stepped to the plate. Brewers reliever Dan Jennings, a lefty, was working from the stretch, and keeping an eye on a twitchy Michael Conforto at first. Conforto flinched hard towards second on Jennings’s first move, and it looks like Jennings awkwardly shorted his move towards the plate, putting himself in a position where he hadn’t completed his drive to throw a real pitch, but also couldn’t go to first without balking. Thus, the goofiest 69-mph fastball ever thrown:

Gonzalez’s reaction is great. He appears to say “that’s fine” but his expression is pure what the hell just happened, here. Burned down by a damn Eephus because the pitcher’s throwing motion was so out of sync. The Brewers went on to put 17 runs on the board and flatten the visiting Mets. I continue to believe pitchers should screw with batters’ timing as often as possible.