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Left-handed Specialist
In baseball, a left-handed specialist (also known as lefty specialist) is a relief pitcher who throws left-handed and specializes in pitching to left-handed batters, weak right-handed batters, and switch-hitters who bat poorly right-handed. Because baseball practices permanent substitution, these pitchers frequently pitch to a very small number of batters in any given game (often only one), and rarely pitch to strictly right-handed batters. Most Major League Baseball (MLB) teams have several left-handed pitchers on their rosters, at least one of whom is a left-handed specialist. A left-handed specialist is sometimes called a ''LOOGY'' (or Lefty One-Out GuY), coined by John Sickels, and may be used pejoratively. Pitching style The pitcher generally has an advantage when his handedness is the same as the batter's, and the batter has an advantage when they are opposite. This is because a right-handed pitcher's breaking balls move to the left from the pitcher's perspective, which ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jesse Orosco
Jesse Russell Orosco (born April 21, 1957) is a Mexican American former relief pitcher in Major League Baseball who holds the major league record for career pitching appearances, having pitched in 1,252 games. He pitched most notably for the New York Mets in the 1980s and made the NL All-Star team in 1983 and 1984. He won a World Series in 1986 World Series, 1986 with the Mets and in 1988 World Series, 1988 with the Dodgers. He threw left-handed, but batted right-handed. He retired in 2003 after having been with the Mets, Dodgers, Cleveland Indians, Milwaukee Brewers, Baltimore Orioles, St. Louis Cardinals, San Diego Padres, New York Yankees, and Minnesota Twins. He retired when he was 46 years old, one of the oldest players to still be playing in the modern age. Orosco is one of only 29 players in baseball history to date to have List of Major League Baseball players who played in four decades, appeared in Major League games in four decades. Orosco's longevity was greatly aided b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Closer (baseball)
In baseball, a closing pitcher, more frequently referred to as a closer (abbreviated CL), is a relief pitcher who specializes in getting the final outs in a close game when his team is leading. The role is often assigned to a team's best reliever. Before the 1990s, pitchers in similar roles were referred to as a fireman, short reliever, and stopper. A small number of closers have won the Cy Young Award. Eight closers have been inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame: Dennis Eckersley, Rollie Fingers, Goose Gossage, Trevor Hoffman, Mariano Rivera, Lee Smith, Bruce Sutter and Hoyt Wilhelm. Usage A closer is generally a team's best reliever and designated to pitch the last few outs of games when his team is leading by a margin of three runs or fewer. Rarely does a closer enter with his team losing or in a tie game. A closer's effectiveness has traditionally been measured by the save, an official Major League Baseball (MLB) statistic since 1969. Over time, closers have become on ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Baseball Strategy
Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding team, called the pitcher, throws a ball that a player on the batting team, called the batter, tries to hit with a bat. The objective of the offensive team (batting team) is to hit the ball into the field of play, away from the other team's players, allowing its players to run the bases, having them advance counter-clockwise around four bases to score what are called " runs". The objective of the defensive team (referred to as the fielding team) is to prevent batters from becoming runners, and to prevent runners' advance around the bases. A run is scored when a runner legally advances around the bases in order and touches home plate (the place where the player started as a batter). The principal objective of the batting team is to have a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Baseball Pitching
In baseball, the pitcher is the player who throws ("pitches") the baseball from the pitcher's mound toward the catcher to begin each play, with the goal of retiring a batter, who attempts to either make contact with the pitched ball or draw a walk. In the numbering system used to record defensive plays, the pitcher is assigned the number 1. The pitcher is often considered the most important player on the defensive side of the game, and as such is situated at the right end of the defensive spectrum. There are many different types of pitchers, such as the starting pitcher, relief pitcher, middle reliever, lefty specialist, setup man, and the closer. Traditionally, the pitcher also bats. Starting in 1973 with the American League(and later the National League) and spreading to further leagues throughout the 1980s and 1990s, the hitting duties of the pitcher have generally been given over to the position of designated hitter, a cause of some controversy. The Japanese Central L ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lefty-righty Switch
In baseball, the lefty-righty switch is a maneuver by which a player that struggles against left-handed or right-handed players is replaced by a player who excels in the situation, usually only for the duration of the situation in question. For instance, a right-handed pitcher who is weak against left-handed hitting and is facing a left-handed hitter would be replaced with a pitcher, usually left-handed, who does a superior job of getting a left-handed hitter out. Similarly, a batter who has difficulty hitting against a left-handed pitcher will sometimes be pinch hit for by a batter who does well, even if the original player is superior in other respects. Conventional baseball wisdom suggests that, when a pitcher and a hitter pitch or bat with the same hand, the pitcher typically has the advantage. This especially holds true for left-handed pitchers, as lefties are less common in a major-league lineup than righties. As a result, the most common use of the lefty-righty switch is wh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Slider (baseball)
In baseball, a slider is a breaking ball pitch that tails laterally and down through the batter's hitting zone. It is thrown at a speed that is lower than a fastball, but higher than the pitcher's curveball. The break on the pitch is shorter than that of the curveball, and the release technique is 'between' those of a curveball and a fastball. The slider is similar to the cutter (baseball), cutter, a fastball pitch, but is more of a breaking ball than the cutter. The slider is also known as a yakker or a snapper. Slider continuum Depending on velocity, a pitch can fall anywhere on the continuum from "fastball" to "slider": * fastball » Cutter (baseball), cut fastball » hard slider » slider » slurve ** cut fastball: slower than fastball ** hard slider: slower than fastball ** slider: slower than fastball The difference between a slider and curveball is that the curveball delivery includes a downward yank on the ball as it is released in addition to the lateral spin appli ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pepperdine University
Pepperdine University () is a private research university affiliated with the Churches of Christ with its main campus in Los Angeles County, California. Pepperdine's main campus consists of 830 acres (340 ha) overlooking the Pacific Ocean and the Pacific Coast Highway near Malibu, California. Founded by entrepreneur George Pepperdine in South Los Angeles in 1937, the school expanded to Malibu in 1972. Courses are now taught at a main Malibu campus, four graduate campuses in Southern California, a center in Washington, DC, and international campuses in Buenos Aires, Argentina; London, United Kingdom; Heidelberg, Germany; Florence, Italy; and Lausanne, Switzerland. The university is composed of an undergraduate liberal arts school (Seaver College) and four graduate schools: the Caruso School of Law, the Graduate School of Education and Psychology, the Graziadio Business School, and the School of Public Policy. History Early years In February 1937, against the backdrop of the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Walk-on (sports)
A walk-on, in American and Canadian college athletics, is an athlete who becomes part of a team without being recruited and awarded an athletic scholarship. A team's walk-on players are normally the weakest players and relegated to the scout team, and may not even be placed on the official depth chart or traveling team, while the scholarship players are the team's main players. However, a walk-on player occasionally becomes a noted member of the team. General parameters *Because of scholarship limits instituted by the NCAA, many football teams do not offer scholarships to their punters, long snappers and kickers until they have become established producers. *Sometimes injury or outside issues can ravage the depth chart of a particular position, resulting in the elevation of a walk-on to a featured player. *In other situations, a walk-on may so impress the coaching staff with their play on the scout team and in practice that they are rewarded with a scholarship and made a pa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Will Ohman
William McDaniel Ohman (born August 13, 1977) is a German–born American former professional baseball pitcher. He attended Ponderosa High school in Parker, Colorado. He played in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the Chicago Cubs, Atlanta Braves, Los Angeles Dodgers, Baltimore Orioles, Florida Marlins and Chicago White Sox. In January 2018, Ohman was named the pitching coach for the Palm Beach Cardinals. College career He played for Pepperdine University in the late 1990s, where he met his wife. Professional career Chicago Cubs Ohman was selected in the eighth round of the 1998 MLB draft by the Chicago Cubs. He spent all of 1998 and 1999 in the Cubs minor league system. Ohman made his major league debut on September 19, against the Milwaukee Brewers, pitching one scoreless inning of relief. He also pitched for the Cubs in , but had Tommy John surgery in and did not pitch again until . In , he pitched for the minor league Iowa Cubs and in the following off-season, he was adde ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mike Myers (baseball)
Michael Stanley Myers (born June 26, 1969) is an American former professional left-handed relief pitcher who played in Major League Baseball (MLB) from 1995 to 2007. High school and college Myers attended high school at Crystal Lake Central High School in Illinois and later attended Iowa State University, where he played college baseball for the Iowa State Cyclones baseball team. In the summers of 1988 and 1989, he pitched for the Brewster Whitecaps of the Cape Cod Baseball League and was named a league all-star in 1989. Minor league career Myers was in the minor leagues for parts of six seasons. In his final four minor league seasons, he was 14–27 with a 4.29 ERA. He was used primarily as a starting pitcher until , when he pitched 42 games, all in relief, for the Charlotte Knights and Toledo Mud Hens. Professional career The San Francisco Giants drafted Myers in the fourth round of the 1990 Major League Baseball Draft. Before he ever played for the Giants at the major league ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Joe Thatcher
Joseph Andrew Thatcher (born October 4, 1981) is an American college baseball coach and former professional baseball pitcher. He played in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the San Diego Padres, Arizona Diamondbacks, Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim and Houston Astros. Early life Thatcher was a member of Kokomo High School's baseball and basketball teams for four years; he was an all-region basketball player. He was a freshman on the 1997 team that played in Indiana's final true state tournament and set a school record for 3-pointers in a game as a senior in 2000. College career Thatcher pitched for four seasons with Indiana State University. In 2003, he played collegiate summer baseball with the Bourne Braves of the Cape Cod Baseball League. He served as the Sycamores' closer in 2004, his final year with the team. Professional career River City Rascals Thatcher was not drafted upon graduating college, he signed with the River City Rascals of the independent Frontier League, appea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jesse Orosco
Jesse Russell Orosco (born April 21, 1957) is a Mexican American former relief pitcher in Major League Baseball who holds the major league record for career pitching appearances, having pitched in 1,252 games. He pitched most notably for the New York Mets in the 1980s and made the NL All-Star team in 1983 and 1984. He won a World Series in 1986 World Series, 1986 with the Mets and in 1988 World Series, 1988 with the Dodgers. He threw left-handed, but batted right-handed. He retired in 2003 after having been with the Mets, Dodgers, Cleveland Indians, Milwaukee Brewers, Baltimore Orioles, St. Louis Cardinals, San Diego Padres, New York Yankees, and Minnesota Twins. He retired when he was 46 years old, one of the oldest players to still be playing in the modern age. Orosco is one of only 29 players in baseball history to date to have List of Major League Baseball players who played in four decades, appeared in Major League games in four decades. Orosco's longevity was greatly aided b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
