Rangers Pitchers Urged To Make Their Pitches Curve Or Sink Or Something

ARLINGTON, TX--With the team currently sporting a league worst 5.15 ERA, Texas Rangers pitching coach Mark Connor is urging his pitchers to make their pitches curve or sink or something, in order to make it more difficult for batters to hit them.

“I think our biggest problem as a staff is that our pitches don’t really do anything other than float up there in a straight line or bounce in the dirt,” said Mark Connor. “As a result, batters get a lot of hits and walks. What we’re doing now is experimenting with different grips and different arm motions that might result in the ball breaking or dipping or rising or whatever, so that we can keep hitters off balance. I think once our guys get that down, we’ll be in a better position to lose by smaller margins.”

To assist his staff, Connor has been spending time in the film room showing them tape of other pitchers throwing curve balls, sliders, and sinkers.

“Now I want you to pay attention to this piece of film,” Connor told a roomful of his pitchers. “As you can see, the ball starts off in one place and then clearly curves to another place. Need to see it again? Okay, here we go: it starts off here, then it ends up…here. That’s a curveball. Now here’s a sinkerball. See how the ball ‘sinks?’ Kind of cool, huh? It’s like magic, only there’s nothing magical about it. It’s all in how you grip the ball and release it. Now – who wants to be the first to try it? Come on, don’t be shy. Padilla, how about you? You’ve been in the league about a hundred years now. It’s about time you learned to make the ball move.”

Unfortunately, when the group took the practice field to apply what they learned, the results were far from encouraging.

‘Whoa, whoa, Kameron! Hold up! Stop!” Connor yelled, after 26-year-old Kameron Loe threw two pitches directly into the ground. “That’s not how you do it. Yes, yes I understand it sunk, technically speaking, but that’s not the idea. Grip the ball like so, then throw it forward to the plate. Ready? Go. Okay, that’s…that’s better I guess, but you just killed our clubhouse boy. That’s the second one this month. Alright, take five everybody!”

Connor says the transition from throwing to pitching is a “work in progress,” but still feels his pitchers have the raw talent to be successful. That kind of confidence means the world to the youngsters on the staff.

“It’s always good to hear your coaches say they have confidence in you,” said Loe, owner of a 6.21 ERA. “And it’s great that Mark is doing his best to try and teach us these exotic pitches. When he first brought it up, I was like ‘Dude, whatever. Spare me all the new age crap.’ But he really opened my eyes. There’s all kinds of cool shit you can do with a baseball. The possibilities are endless.

“I’ve even got this great idea for a ‘boomerang ball,’ which will whizz up to the plate at like 110 miles per hour, then stop for a split second, then boomerang right back into my glove. It’s going to be unhittable. I just have to check with Mark about the right way to grip it.”

Vicente Padilla, the oldest active starter on the team, insists that he knows how to throw so-called “junk balls,” but that his control has been off this year.

“Thank you, but I know what a curve ball is,” said Padilla, who is currently 2-6. “I’m not some clueless little kid. It’s just that I haven’t had my control this year. When I throw my curve ball, it either doesn’t curve or it curves right over the plate and hangs there like a piñata. I don't know. There’s just something about Arlington, Texas that turns pitchers to shit the minute they come here. Maybe it’s the humidity. Or maybe it's the fact that most of us weren't that good in the first place.”

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