Last week, I wrote about Masahiro Tanaka’s experiments with the knuckle-curve. I established that Tanaka’s knuckle-curve is indeed a new addition to his arsenal; it differs from his old curveball in both movement and velocity. In case you need to refresh your memory, here’s the pitch in hot GIF action:
And another one, for good measure.
Now the question to answer is, what compelled Tanaka to add the pitch to his arsenal?
As a general point, the ability to throw more pitch types is always beneficial, as it only adds to the long list of things that batters have to keep in mind.