Essay On Fastball

Movement among pitches is what makes baseball a challenging game for the hitter. Without these off-speed pitches, scores would be a lot higher, and games would last a lot longer. Most people know what curveballs and changeups are, but what causes them to move? Off-speed pitches are thrown to disorient the timing of the batter’s swing so that they do not hit it as hard. An off-speed pitch is any pitch that is thrown slower than a fastball. There are hundreds of types of off-speed pitches. In order to understand how a baseball moves and spins, the fastball, curveball, and changeup have to be analyzed. The first pitch that will be explained is the most basic pitch in baseball, the fastball. The two seam fastball is usually thrown about 90 miles per hour (MPH) by major leaguers. “ A baseball has two-hundred and sixteen raised red stitches

“The changeup is thrown just like a fastball, only slower to confuse the timing of the batter” (Richmond 2). Changeups are thrown identical to a fastball, but to make the ball go slower, the pitcher would slow down his arm speed. A benefit to the pitch being slower is that is drops about an inch and a half more than a fastball. In order to truly fool the batter the pitcher would use the exact same throwing motion as a fastball. The reason pitchers throw changeups more often than curveballs is because curveballs damage the arm more than changeups do. When a pitcher grips a changeup, he would hold it like a fastball, but shift the ball to his middle and index fingers instead of his middle and pointer finger. “The main reason a changeup fools batters is by making them swing too soon” (Solesky et. al. 47). When pitchers throws the changeup, they would snap their fingers down to get the most drop out of the pitch. It would seem like changeups would be easy to hit, but it can be unexpected and is one of the hardest pitches to hit in