Have you ever heard someone talking about baseball and types of pitches and wondered what the different pitches meant? A fastball and a curve ball are easy enough to understand but what is a splitter? What is a screw ball? What is this gyroball everybody is talking about? Here is your guide to the different types of pitches.
Most pitches are categorized into the three types: fastballs, breaking balls and changeups. Fastballs are pretty simple, they are thrown very fast, some of them have movement on them and some of them don’t. Every pitcher has some form of a fastball in their arsenal. Breaking balls are pitches that have a lot of movement. Either they will move sideways as they come to the plate, or they will move downward. The object of a breaking ball is to confuse the batter. Changeups are pitches that are thrown to look like a fastball but they get to home plate a lot slower. They are also meant to confuse a batter. Each of these three categories have a few different variations of pitches.
Fastballs
1. Four Seam Fastball – The four-seam fastball is normally the fastest pitch a player has and can get as high as 100+ mph. The four-seam fastball doesn’t have much movement on it, pitchers just try and throw it past you.
2. Two Seam Fastball – The two-seam fastball is also referred to as a sinker. The difference between the four-seam fastball and the two-seam fastball is that the two-seam fastball has more downward movement during the pitch (hence the name sinker).
3. Cutter – The cutter is sort of like the mixture of a slider (a pitch that breaks to one side) and a fastball. The cutter is thrown faster than sliders usually are but has more movement than a fastball usually does.
4. Forkball – Typically a pitch will have backspin on it but the Forkball actually has forward spin. The forward spin on a forkball causes the ball to tumble through the strike zone.
5. Splitter – The splitter is much like a Forkball. Both are thrown to look the same as a fastball only to drop at the last second and fool the hitter. The difference between the Splitter and the Forkball is that the splitter has a sudden drop to it and the forkball has more of a gradual drop.
Breaking Balls
1. Curveball – The curveball is easy enough to understand. A pitcher puts top spin on a pitch in order for the ball to break or curve.
2. Slider – The Slider is basically half curveball and half fastball. The Slider has more speed than a curveball, but less speed than a fastball.
3. Screwball – I’m not sure where the term screwball comes from but I think it has to do with screwing with your head. The screwball is the same as a curveball but it breaks in the opposite direction. For a right handed pitcher the natural movement for a curveball is from right to left, so a screwball would move from left to right.
Changeups
1. Palmball – The palmball is pitched by placing the ball tightly in your palm when you throw it. This causes the pitch to slow down as its gets to the plate in hopes that the batter will swing too soon.
2. Circle Change – The circle change is thrown to look like a fastball but because of how a player holds his fingers the ball will not go as fast, tricking the player.
3. Super Changeup – The super changeup is simply a changeup that has a larger speed deferential between it and the fastball.
Other Types of Pitches
1. Knuckeball – The knuckleball is a pitch that is thrown to have as little spin on the ball as possible. Due to the lack of spin the ball will become very erratic making it hard to hit but it’s also a hard pitch for the pitcher to control and for the catcher to catch.
2. Eephus Pitch – The eephus pitch isn’t something you see much anymore. The Eephus pitch is a pitch that is thrown in a high arch. The idea is that the ball will be going at such a slow motion and will be coming down at an angle that it will be hard to judge the pitch.
3. Spitball – A spitball is what it sounds like. The spitball is a pitch that will have spit or some other kind of liquid on it. When a wet ball is pitched the ball will move in an unusual way making it difficult to hit.
4. Gyroball – The gyroball is a popular pitch in Japan that many people have been talking about because of Daisuke Matsuzaka. Due to the unique method in which the gyro ball is thrown the ball will have a bullet like spin, while most other pitches have forward spin or backward spin.
