April 11, 2007
Bill Nye, the Gyro Guy
Bill Nye offers the greatest primer on why pitches move I've ever read. As with most of his work, it's both technical and accessible. And he also gives a perfect explanation of why Matsuzaka is so good:
As a guy who loves the game, who loves the science of it, but is not the foremost authority on who's who, Matsuzaka reminds me of Livan Hernandez. They both seem to just throw without working as hard as everybody else does. They have a smoothness and an efficiency that most pitchers just don't have.
So, Daisuke is able to rotate his wrist and his shoulders and position his hips so that he can alter the spin he puts on the ball without injuring himself. He can throw conventional fastballs and side-spinning gyroballs. And, he throws each of these pitches in just about exactly the same way, with his body in the same position, so that each pitch starts out looking exactly the same to his opponents. Batters are continually thrown off, pun intended again.... He varies the speed and the spin constantly. So you never quite know what's coming even though you have a pretty good idea where it's coming from. We'll see how spun out teams get this season against this Doctor of Spin.
Please read the whole thing.
Thanks to my lovely wife Marilyn for the link.
Posted by David Pinto at
11:53 AM
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Great read. I'm going to bookmark that one.
Very interesting. So the gyroball has no top- or underspin and rotates side-to-side in the opposite direction of a curve ball--meaning it breaks the opposite way and doesn't fall like a curve ball?
Very interesting stuff. Also helps to explain why Livan Hernandez has racked up so many Pitcher Abuse Points year after year yet still manages to be a healthy innings eater. Bodes well for Matsuzaka's future health status, too.