For the American band, see Fastball (band). For the version of softball, see Fastpitch softball.
Not to be confused with speedball (disambiguation).
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During pregame bullpen warmup Chris Young warms up with a four-seam fastball.
The fastball is the most common type of pitch thrown by pitchers in baseball and softball. Its distinctive feature is its high speed. "Power pitchers," such as former American major leaguers Nolan Ryan and Roger Clemens, rely the speed of the fastball to prevent the ball from being hit and throw fastballs at speeds of 95–105 miles per hour (153–169 km/h) (officially) and up to 108.1 miles per hour (174.0 km/h) (unofficially).[1] As an alternative to the fastball, pitchers can put movement on slower thrown balls, or throw them towards the inside or outside of home plate where batters cannot easily reach it.
Fastballs are usually thrown with a backspin so that the Magnus effect creates an upward force on the ball. This causes it to fall less rapidly than expected, and sometimes causes an optical illusion often called a rising fastball. Although it is impossible for a human to throw a baseball fast enough and with enough backspin for the ball to actually rise, to the batter the pitch seems to rise due to the unexpected lack of natural drop on the pitch.
A straight pitch fastball is achieved by gripping the ball with the fingers across the wide part of the seam (called a "four-seam fastball") so that both the index and middle fingers are touching two seams perpendicularly. A sinking fastball is thrown by gripping it across the narrow part of the ball (a "two-seam fastball"), so that both the index and middle fingers are along a seam. Lateral motion is achieved by holding a four-seam fastball off-center (a "cut fastball"), and a fastball with sinking action and a lateral break is thrown by splitting the fingers along the seams (a "split-finger fastball").
Colloquially, a fastball pitcher is said to "throw heat" or "put cream on it", among many other variants.
^"The Fastest Pitcher in Baseball History". Baseball Almanac, Inc. Archived from the original on 2007-08-12. Retrieved 2007-08-10.
The fastball is the most common type of pitch thrown by pitchers in baseball and softball. Its distinctive feature is its high speed. "Power pitchers,"...
In baseball, a cut fastball or cutter is a type of fastball that breaks toward the pitcher's glove-hand side, as it reaches home plate. This pitch is somewhere...
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rock musician and songwriter best known as the lead singer of the band Fastball. Tony Scalzo was born in Hawaii to a mother from Arizona and an Italian-American...
pitch often used in a pitcher's arsenal, usually thrown to look like a fastball but arriving much more slowly to the plate. Its reduced speed coupled with...
MLB. His four-seam fastball had the highest average speed of any MLB pitcher's pitches in 2016, at 100.9 mph, and his two-seam fastball had the third-highest...
types of fastballs. The four-seam fastball is the hardest thrown pitch, but also has very little movement or break to it. The two-seam fastball is slightly...
conversation with Zimmer, Clark watched, read Maddux's lips (Maddux said, "Fastball, high, inside), and so knew what pitch to expect. After that incident,...
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raised in an English orphanage, learned yoga in Tibet, and could throw a fastball as fast as 168 miles per hour (270 km/h). In early 1985, Mark Mulvoy, the...
the youth pitcher humility. In 2012, Ohtani threw a 160 km/h (99 mph) fastball as an 18-year-old high school pitcher, which at the time, had set a Japanese...
The Help Machine is the seventh studio album by American rock band Fastball. Produced by Steve Berlin of Los Lobos, Berlin personally selected the tracks...
context of pitching, the number 1 is a common sign (and nickname) for the fastball. An inning in which a pitcher faces only three batters and none safely...
usual fastball, or with a top-spin, like the curveball and the slider. When throwing a gyroball, a pitcher holds the side of the ball with a fastball grip...
posted a 12–0 win–loss record with a 0.79 earned run average (ERA), and his fastball reached speeds of up to 92 mph (148 km/h). His final high school game was...
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