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[–]Zapped 3 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

Super interesting article for us baseball fans. I would have thought it was all of the specialty pitchers today for specific lefty-vs-lefty or righty-vs-righty situations. I remember the lefty Tom Browning would get rid of the ball as fast as he could. From what I've seen, if you don't allow the batter to lose the look of the last pitch, then the more effective changing the speed of the pitches will be. It seems that it's all about trying to throw 100 mph now. If you have great control, you can get guys out even if you can't throw more than 90 mph. Throwing 100 mph may make it easier, but most pitchers are exhausted by the 6th inning that throw that hard.

And Gooden wasn't ruined by innings. Pitching coach Mel Stottlemeyer had him throwing too many curveballs early in his career. That and the cocaine, although that probably helped him during the games.