Beyond the Box Score: Breaking Pitchers

[weams]

http://www.beyondtheboxscore.com/2016/3/23/11259198/pitchers-tommy-john-surgery-will-break-your-heart-and-everything?utm_campaign=beyondtheboxscore&utm_content=chorus&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter

The zip of a fastball and the break of a slider are but fleeting wonders. There are few feelings that can match the unbridled wonder that comes from watching a young pitcher rise to the Show and absolutely shove. Michael Wacha gave us this small honor. It feels like it's been eons since Wacha emerged as a weapon of the highest caliber and dazzled all of baseball in October. Then, the pitching demons had their due, and they claimed Wacha's shoulder. This is baseball. This is pitching. Sometimes, young pitchers don't succumb to Wacha's fate. Sometimes they blossom into beautiful and terrifying creatures of wanton destruction.

[weams]

There is a certain something else that shrouds the pitcher's arm in fear. More often than not, the position player fades into the ether. The pitcher seems to die. He dies a gruesome death of balls flying over the wall and trainers visiting the mound.

Enjoy the pitcher while you can. He will be here for only so long.

Enjoy them.

[weams]

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">One of the ALL-TIME great pitching analogies from Paul Nyman.Make sure to expand this diagram & read the analysis. <a href="https://t.co/8XymOFSuKl">pic.twitter.com/8XymOFSuKl</a></p>— Jerry Weinstein (@JWonCATCHING) <a href="

">March 24, 2016</a></blockquote>

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[OFFNY]

weams said:

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">One of the ALL-TIME great pitching analogies from Paul Nyman.Make sure to expand this diagram & read the analysis. <a href="https://t.co/8XymOFSuKl">pic.twitter.com/8XymOFSuKl</a></p>? Jerry Weinstein (@JWonCATCHING) <a href="

">March 24, 2016</a></blockquote>

<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

o

 

After having his career ended by arthritis in his left (pitching) elbow at only 30 years-old, Sandy Koufax was asked if he felt "robbed" of having a longer baseball career.

His reply was, "Not at all. The pitching motion is an unnatural motion for the arm, and so I feel fortunate to have pitched as long and as effectively as I did."

 

o