This pitcher's eye-popping submarine delivery will make you question everything you've ever known
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You think you know things, but in reality you have no clue.
Life tends to throw lessons like that at all of us in a variety of ways. You might think you have a handle on what¡¯s going on, and an idea that you¡¯re in charge of some aspect of it.
That¡¯s an amusing concept, being ¡°in charge¡± of anything. None of us are in charge of anything.
How do I know this? Well, I watch a lot of baseball, as you might expect. Most pitchers on the baseball diamond adhere to a set of ¡°rules¡± or ¡°commonly accepted practices¡± in terms of how they go about their business.
Not Tyler Rogers. Look at this:
That's how the rookie Rogers throws pitches. The Giants right-hander made his Major League debut in Tuesday night's game against the D-backs at Oracle Park, and ... wow.
Watch it again.
Now, it's important to note that a pitcher using a "submarine" style like Rogers' is not a new thing. It's happened in baseball for years. Decades, even. But that doesn't take away from the shock value of seeing it for the first time in a while.
Growing up, I was immersed in the "Moneyball" culture of Billy Beane's A's around the year 2000. One of the key pitchers during that era and the team's 20-game winning streak of 2002 was Chad Bradford, a cricket-farmer-turned-baseball-player who threw like this:
Watching Tyler Rogers, the twin brother of Twins left-hander Taylor Rogers, make his debut with the Giants, I couldn't help but think of Bradford. Both pitchers practically scrape the mound with their knuckles during their delivery.
It's a truly mesmerizing display of physical might, honestly. Pitching with a "regular" delivery seems impossibly complex enough, with all the muscles and joints snapping together to help push a baseball 60 feet and change toward home plate.
But also doing that while spinning your body sideways and flinging the ball from a significantly different angle? It's truly bizarre, and I love every second of it.
More of this, please, pitchers.
And while I'm making requests, I want to see Tyler Rogers from this angle, too: