Pitchers have often talked of losing some movement on their fastball when they crank it up.
Newk threw 1 FA last night at 97.6 mph with 2482 rpm. I imagine that pitch must have had 11"+ of rise, and may be the nastiest pitch thrown by any Braves pitcher this year.
Here's video of it: https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/sporty-videos?playId=94be7031-097f-4d7c-8c0e-7819a9498be1
That pitch was right down the middle and was fouled off. Had it been located a bit higher it would have probably been a whiff.
If Newk could consistently get that pitch up in the zone, I suspect we would see a lot of this:
https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/sporty-videos?playId=ebd5dcdc-d807-418b-80c7-b25afb17cb43
That guy had zero chance of touching that pitch.
Last edited: