The Uninitiated's Guide to Pitches, Part 2: Breaking Balls

If you missed part 1, head over there first
Link to Part One

As promised, here's part two of my series on pitch types in baseball, with examples!

We just covered the 5 major types of fastballs- the four-seamer, two-seamer, sinker, cutter, and splitter. These pitches are usually thrown on the Major League level from 85 mph (at the absolute slowest) to 100 MPH, depending on the pitcher's style, ability, and raw talent.

Now, being able to throw 100 is great and all, but like I said in Part 1, these guys are facing pro hitters. Aroldis Chapman- owner of the league's fastest fastball, gave up a hit to the Nationals' young superstar, Bryce Harper, on a 102 MPH fastball this year. The bottom line is simple: pitchers cannot live on gas alone. They must have complimentary pitches.

So, what's the best ways to counter a hard, straight fastball? Naturally, you add break and take speed off to screw up a hitter's timing. That's where breaking balls come in.

A lot of announcers have a lot of different terms for the different kinds of breaking balls you'll see in a game, but in the interest of keeping it simple, I'm going to categorize them as a curveball or a slider.

With the exception of the fastball, the curveball is probably the most all-encompassing term in pitching for a type of pitch rather than a specific pitch. Just as an announcer might use the term fastball to refer to a cutter or a sinker or a four-seamer, he might use "curveball" to refer to a 12-6 curveball, a sweeping curveball, or any other type of pitch with breaking movement.

Curveballs have a variety of trajectories and breaks among pitchers. This is mostly influenced by the arm slot (the angle the pitcher's arm releases the ball from, relative to the ground) and release point of a given pitcher, which is in turn governed by how comfortable the pitcher is throwing the curveball. Additionally, any of these pitches with horizontal break will only move away from the pitcher's throwing arm. So, if a righthander throws it, it will break to his left. If a lefty throws it, it will break to his right. This goes for all breaking balls, except for one.

The most famous kind is the 12-6 curveball. This pitch is so named for its break. Imagine looking at a clock- the 12 is directly above the 6 and this pitch breaks by starting in a "12" position and drops all the way to the 6. It's a straight drop down, in short. 

Clayton Kershaw, Los Angeles Dodgers

You can see the break quite clearly in this clip. It should follow as no surprise that the man throwing it is considered the best in the sport currently. 

Garrett Richards, Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim

That's the classic 12-6 curveball. Straight drop, right through the strike zone, almost no horizontal break. Easy enough, right?

Other curveballs can feature plenty of horizontal break.

Felix Hernandez, Seattle Mariners

See how Hernandez's pitch drops and moves in to the hitter? Using the clock analogy from before, this looks like a 2-7 curveball. The term sweeping curveball is used to describe this one most commonly and is probably the best term if you want to clearly distinguish that a curve has a lot of lateral movement. 

Steven Matz, New York Mets

Curveballs fall across the spectrum as it relates to velocity, drop and side-to-side movement. Each one is unique to the pitcher that throws it. Here a few more for your interest.

There is a curious kind of curveball, called a knuckle curve, thrown when a pitcher grips the pitch with one of his fingers bent.

Dellin Betances, New York Yankees

Anthony Ranaudo, Texas Rangers

The next major kind of breaking pitch is the slider. Most professionals can throw both a slider and a curveball but almost all of them have a specific preference. Loosely defined a slider is a breaking pitch that tails laterally away from the pitcher (to the left if you throw righthanded, vice versa for lefties) but with more speed than a curveball.

Chris Sale, Chicago White Sox

Adam Ottavino, Colorado Rockies

Last, but most assuredly not least is a kind of hybrid pitch, called a slurve. As you could guess from its name, the slurve is the name of a pitch that a pitcher throws like a curveball, but with a slider's grip. The result is, predictably, a pitch that is one part curveball, one part slider. And it's almost impossible to identify unless you are facing it and/or have been expressly told by the pitcher that he throws a sluve and not simply a kind of sweeping curveball (see above).

Dellin Betances, New York Yankees

Corey Kluber, Cleveland Indians

That's it for breaking pitches!

Up next: changeups and other miscellaneous pitches!