Cutter (baseball)

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Cutter , also called cut fastball , (English: actually cutting edge, but in this context without a direct translation) describes a certain type of throw of the pitcher in baseball .

Flight curve of a cutter

The cutter is one of the "fastballs" , the throws with high flight speed. It gets its name from the sideways flight movement, as you would with a horizontal cut. Similar to the slider , it is also an intermediate form, but very close to the fastball . It is thrown with the same arm movement and speed as the fast ball, but the attempts Pitcher respect thereto, by different finger pressure or lateral thumb grip adjacent to the reverse rotation (backspin) mitzugeben a strong lateral rotation. This causes a breakout of the ball just before the strike zone or already in the swing area of the batter . Depending on when a batsman hits this pitch, this has different effects on the stroke. If he tries to hit the ball very early because of the high speed (pull hitting) , he hits it into foul territory . The later the ball is hit, the less it can be hit hard and aimed because of the sideways movement. As a result, the cutter often has weak ground balls , which are easy to pick up from the infielders and which lead to “off” at first base . In contrast to the change-up or slider, the cutter is not a typical strikeout pitch.

If a right-handed pitcher throws at left-handed batsmen (or vice versa), the pitch will split or break the bat more often than usual . The late sideways movement of the ball in the direction of the batsman means that the contact point is far outside the sweet spot on the tapered part of the bat. The lower thickness combined with the high airspeed are the cause of the break.

One of the most feared cutter throwers was closing pitcher Mariano Rivera , the record holder in Major League Baseball in the saves category .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Tyler Kepner: For Yankees and Rivera, It's Case Closed ( English ) The New York Times Company. March 23, 2004. Retrieved October 2, 2008.