When it had only happened once, on August 22nd with two outs in the seventh in an 0-1 count, it was a curiosity. Sometimes a pitcher doesn’t set his grip right. Sometimes the ball comes out funny, and sometimes when funny means good.
Mike Zunino was asking for the pitch down, but he clearly wasn’t expecting it to take off like that, not darting armside and down like there was a massive gravitational body in the right-handed batter’s box. He looked at his glove, then smacked his glove.