We love a lot of things here at Baseball is Fun, but one of our favorites is a good ole fashioned eephus pitch.
In case you forgot what an eephus pitch was, here’s a little reminder of what a successful and unsuccessful one looks like:
El Duque once tried to sneak a second eephus pitch by @AROD. A-Rod said no: http://t.co/lWHWogkeW7 pic.twitter.com/C1NO1SzAkg
— Cut4 (@Cut4) August 26, 2015
Basically, it’s the attempt by a pitcher to sneak a slow, looping pitch right down the middle of the plate (and past an unsuspecting hitter).
The thinking, I imagine, is that the batter will be so caught off guard, he won’t quite know what to do with it. Shrug. Sometimes it works.
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… And sometimes it doesn’t.
Remember MLB’s resident bad-boy, Joey Votto?
Joey Votto: Baseball's favorite villain.
(volume) pic.twitter.com/GZ7ZrQ9tBw— Baseball is Fun (@flippingbats) January 13, 2017
Yeah, well, he cares not for your silly eephus attempts, Yu Darvish:
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That pitch is absolutely crushed – in every single sense of the phrase – right out of the ball park, and Darvish knows it right away:
(Pictured above: The face of a man who knows what just happened.)
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But to be fair, that pitch felt like half-an-eephus. In other words, it didn’t really feel like Darvish entirely committed to the strategy that’s supposed to make that pitch work in the first place.
If you’re interested in what full-out commitment to an eephus looks like, we’ve got you covered (h/t to @EamusCatuli0000 on Twitter for the assist):
You know the center-field camera man was caught off guard when he had to pan the camera up three feet to capture the pitch, because THAT’S an eephus pitch.