Welcome to The Opener, where every weekday morning you’ll get a fresh, topical column to start your day from one of SI.com’s MLB writers.
Toronto Blue Jays reliever Julian Merryweather is a pitching freak. Nobody in the recorded history of the past two decades can throw a fastball as hard as Merryweather and deaden a changeup as much. His average gap between those two pitches this year is an unprecedented 17.6 mph, with a maximum of 21.9 mph between his fastest fastball (100.4) and slowest changeup (78.5).
Merryweather has been almost impossible to hit.