A commonly held belief, reiterated from youth ball on up to the majors, is that the harder a pitch comes in, the harder it goes out.
“I always say that when someone throws hard,” New York Mets catcher Travis d’Arnaud said.
Another variant, courtesy of Boston Red Sox catcher Blake Swihart, says of pitchers, “Let them supply the power.”
That’s all fine and dandy, except for this caveat: it’s not really all that true.
The hardest-hit ball this season came off the bat of the Miami Marlins’ Giancarlo Stanton at 120.3 mph, as measured by the radar-tracking technology of Statcast.