In Friday’s opener between the Atlanta Braves and San Francisco Giants, there was an air of wildness emanating from the mound. Baseballs were skidding across opposite batter’s boxes, digging craters in front of home plate, skipping past catchers to the back stop.
Some of this is by design of course. With count leverage, he doesn’t need to be refined. This game is about hitting a rock with a stick. A crude offering has been known to elicit a crude hack, so why not push those boundaries? Sometimes a pitcher needs to bury a curveball and aims to bounce it off the plate.