Sarris: Mat Latos throws a pitch that no one else has thrown
From SABR member Eno Sarris at FanGraphs on May 19, 2015:
Mat Latos throws a pitch that nobody in the big leagues throws. For good reason, too. He has no idea where it’s going.
“I was told in high school that it would never be a realistic pitch in the big leagues,” Latos said when I asked him about the pitch that he gripped like a knuckle curve but released like a changeup and was neither his breaking ball nor his changeup. Yeah, I said, sure, but what is this pitch?
Sometimes it goes straight down, Latos said. Like the time he struck out Bryce Harper with it and the ball just fell off the table.
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Sometimes it acts like a normal changeup, the Marlins pitcher thought. Like the time he got Dan Uggla to whiff. That one looked almost conventional.
Other times it veers for the arm side like a reverse curveball. Like something that makes your bullpen catcher pop up out of his squat and nod like a bobblehead. Like something you’ve never seen before. Or something Seth Smith had never seen before, at least.
Read the full article here: http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/mat-latos-throws-a-pitch-that-nobody-else-has-thrown/
Originally published: May 20, 2015. Last Updated: May 20, 2015.