Eddie Gamboa is becoming a knuckleballer

[Tony-OH]

Just take it and hope it gets called a ball.

Honestly, that was a bit high so it may have been a ball. Nasty just the same though.

[LookinUp]

I'm not lying when I say that I faced a knuckleballer in slow pitch softball once and he was nearly impossible to hit. You could make contact, but by the time the ball got to the plate you had lost balance and leverage, so contact was weak. That was one of the weirdest experiences of my life.

[DrungoHazewood]

Since we heard of the Niekro thing, it seemed to be only a matter of time before one of our pitchers started throwing a knuckler. Pretty cool.

Even with a Niekro on board it's still a big hurdle to re-learn everything you know about pitching at the age of 28. I'm more than a little surprised Gamboa is doing it. His career minor league ERA is 3.03.

Most of these guys, even 27-year-olds in AA, are convinced (and not entirely without reason) that they're a six-week hot streak from pitching in Baltimore. Start throwing the knuckler and who the heck knows what's going to happen.

[Who's On 1st]

This will definitely be an interesting experiment to keep an eye on. Best of luck to Gamboa on his conversion.

http://www.pressboxonline.com/blog.cfm?ID=5872

Great article! It would be good to see him master it and move to the Orioles.

[Ruzious]

My only question is - Is that regular speed or slow motion?

[Moose Milligan]

I can't stop watching this. I don't know what's more ridiculous, the way that ball moves, the batters reaction or the way the catcher flinches at the last split second, closes is eyes and somehow catches it.

[paulcoates]

On one of my high school travel teams, I used to play with a guy who was a SS and Pitcher and I would guess he was throwing 92 off the mound, and when warming up would throw a heater as a knuckler. Being on the other end of that is just flat out scary and I have no idea how anyone on this planet could hit it.

[Enjoy Terror]

The GIF that I posted in this thread is an R.A. Dickey knuckleball thrown to Will Rhymes, caught by Mike Nickeas. I believe this was part of Dickey's back-to-back one-hit wonders against the Rays (i think the other one was against the O's!). You know, in case people were wondering.

[Morgan423]

Eddie starts for the Baysox tonight, according to the team Twitter. Hopefully that k-ball will be twittering as well.

[Rene88]

i saw the boxscore, but any feedback on how he looked tonight? How many knuckleballs?

[Morgan423]

i saw the boxscore, but any feedback on how he looked tonight? How many knuckleballs?

That would be nice to know. The MiLB Gameday doesn't track pitch velocity or location (which is odd, because I thought it used to).

Sounds like Eddie liked the way it was moving for him early in the game, but was having trouble getting called strikes (from the recap article on the team web page):

"[My knuckleball] felt better the first couple innings," Gamboa said. "I had a few close calls that were called balls so I just had to be patient with it. The pitch was moving well, I just need to command the zone."

Eddie pitched 5.2 scoreless before either tiring or losing control in the 6th. He gave up a single, a walk, double steal, and two singles (2 runs scored) before giving way to relief pitcher Walters, who gave up a dinger to let Eddie's other 2 runners score.

To borrow OFFNY's familiar format, here is his 2013 stat line after 2 starts:

.

EDDIE GAMBOA O

IP:. 11.2

REC:o 0-0

K/9: 6.17

BB/9: 3.09

HR/9:O 0

BABIP: .133

2013 ERA: 3.09

2013 FIP: 3.63

He has given up only 4 hits (all singles) to 45 hitters faced, but has walked 4 and hit 3 guys (including the first pitch he threw this season). His stats so far suggest that AA hitters can barely get a bat to his k-ball, let alone square up on it... it seems clear that it is moving a lot, but a stat line can't convey or guess at how it will play to better hitters. It would be cool to see him in action to find out.

[BallsoHard]

Thought I would share this from http://www.masnsports.com/steve_melewski/2013/04/orioles-bullpen-remains-one-of-the-strongest-areas-of-this-team.html

"First of all, just Steve. He pitched six shutout in his first start and had five shutout last night until Akron finally got to him for four runs. It's going well and Gary Kendall explained that pitch really adds to some decent stuff he had already:

"What can be devastating about Eddie is his velocity was always average

at 89 to 91 with a breaking ball he could always throw for a strike and

his best pitch is his changeup," Kendall said. "Once he gets comfortable

with that knuckleball, he could be kind of devastating. Some knucklers

don't throw a fastball that firm. This thing could really escalate him

and we're all pulling for him because we know what he puts into the

game."

As for Baltimore, we won't know until we see a lot more and if that can in fact escalate him further into the big lg picture."

Steve Melewski in response to a question about how Gamboa's conversion to a knuckleballer is going.

[kterp]

Was at the game last night. Had some good movement on the knuckle ball. Reliever came in and gave up a 3 run homer that 2 of the runs charged to him. Lots of little groundball and weak pop ups early in the game.

[Morgan423]

Was at the game last night. Had some good movement on the knuckle ball. Reliever came in and gave up a 3 run homer that 2 of the runs charged to him. Lots of little groundball and weak pop ups early in the game.

Thanks for the news Is he throwing it all the time right now, or do they have him mixing his other "normal" pitches in?

[Rene88]

Would love to see this guy pitch, may have to go see him pitch here soon.