Baseball Pitch Research Paper

Why do Certain Pitches in Baseball Curve? Scientifically, it seems humanly impossible to hit a 95 mile-per-hour straight fastball, but we see the professionals do it all the time! Your brain only has 125 milliseconds to decide whether or not to swing at the pitch, let alone making healthy contact with the ball (Griesmer). And remember, it is not always a straight fastball shooting out of the pitcher’s hand. Sometimes pitchers hurl in an off-speed pitch with movement to throw the hitters off their own balance. Yes, movement as in, certain rotations on the baseball decide whether it will drop down, slide to the right or left, or just float right up into the strike-zone, all still traveling faster than you would drive down the freeway. The physics behind different pitches is astounding! To narrow this down to two drastically different pitches, the four-seam fastball and the curve ball will be magnified. They are merely impossible to hit due to their velocity, movement, and the change in velocity when thrown back to back. Now, the science within a four seam fastball; the brain seriously has an eighth of a second to decide whether or
not to swing the bat! The physics behind, particularly the fastball, is this pitch also has the fastest average velocity out of all pitches-about 93 miles per hour-due to its almost perfect backspin. The average major league fastball has a spin rate of 2226 revolutions per minute (Petriello). The faster and near perfect backspin creates higher pressure under the ball and lower pressure on top resulting in the illusion of the ball rising (Israel). Actually, the ball isn't rising, it is just falling less dramatically than it would having no rotation, or zero rotations per minute. That means it doesn’t have any horizontal or vertical movement, or what baseball players call “break”, It travels in a straight-forward motion catapulting out of the pitcher’s hand, through the air, and into the catcher’s glove almost as straight as a flashlight beam. Still, some hitters today say that certain pitchers can acquire their fastball to visually rise, but every pitch descends; some more than others depending on spin rate.
A very interesting pitch is the breaking ball. Sitting right around 76 miles per hour and spinning 2308 times per minute, the curve ball is the most common strikeout pitch in all levels of baseball because it is extraordinarily slower and has some downward movement, or curve (Petriello). The way to pitch a curve ball is similar to throwing a dart. You want your fingers on the side of the ball to cause the ball to have top spin out of your hand. Top spin states that the ball is spinning backwards through the air causing higher air pressure on top of the ball, and lower air pressure on the bottom (Israel). This will create the break just mentioned previously and induce the hitter to become off-balance (Science of baseball: Curveballs). Some curve balls break straight down to the dirt while others move horizontally across the plate depending on the type of spin given to the ball. Anyways, a curve ball literally curves because of different air drafts along the surface of the ball.
In conclusion, when someone says that they can curve a baseball, believe them because baseballs truly do curve due to different rotations among the ball after being released from the pitcher’s hand.
Mentioned before, the four-seam fastball may actually appear to rise, but it really just goes in a laser-like straight line because of the near perfect backspin. Whereas, the curve ball curves downward and sometimes to the right for a right-handed pitcher, or left for a left-handed pitcher. Depending on how much back spin for a fastball, or top spin for a curve ball, is sacrificed into the baseball, that will increase or decrease how much break will be on the pitch. Another reason why baseball is one of the toughest sports to succeed in is: “The hardest thing to do in baseball is to hit a round ball with a round bat, squarely.” -Ted
Williams