Quote:
Originally Posted by Tron_fdc
Crazy. I always heard hitting a baseball was one of the hardest things in pro sports. It's amazing to me that hitters can intentionally foul off balls while waiting for a better pitch.
So from a batters perspective, how do you recognize a good pitch? Is their hand eye that good? They look at the pitchers hand on delivery? Or they just assume he's going to be throwing a certain pitch depending on the count? I've always wondered that.
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It's a bit of all of those. Look at his hand, pick up the spin, guess the location and/or pitch type. Often you'll see a batter looking for one type of pitch, say a fastball, and then trying to react if they get another pitch and just foul it off.
This stuff is what makes watching Estrada so fascinating. He does such an incredible job of disguising his fastball and change-up that batters can never distinguish between the two. I've never seen so many quality hitters swinging so late at a sub-90mph fastball. I love watching him work.