From Johnny Cueto to Jeff Samardzija, it's time to look at the new pitch craze that's sweeping the region.
For years, we’ve marveled at Madison Bumgarner’s slider-cutter-what-have-you. It doesn’t matter what you call it, really. It’s a pitch that’s thrown hard, though a little slower than his standard fastball, and it bores in on right-handed hitters. Sounds like a slider to me (and the lasers agree), except the break is late and subtle enough to consider it a cutter. Because this site is run by a 10-year-old manchild, we settled on slutter.
It was a distinctive pitch in a lot of ways, and it wasn’t something we had seen a lot of.