With his first pitch at his first home Monday, the Angels’ Andrew Bailey fired an errant fastball. When he received the ball back from his catcher, he surreptitiously glanced at the radar-gun reading flashing near Oakland Coliseum’s left-field foul pole.
Angels second baseman Cliff Pennington noticed, and so he shouted the number out to his old friend: 92.4 mph. With the second pitch, Bailey fired another fastball, which was fouled off by an Oakland rookie. Both Bailey and Pennington watched 92.4 mph flit again.
“You don’t even have to look,” Pennington shouted. “It’s the same.”
Velocity is paramount to the 32-year-old right-hander, who has fought for years to recapture most of what he once had.