Submarine (baseball)

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In baseball, a submarine is a pitch delivered with a three-quarter sidearm or underhand motion. The pitcher delivers the ball while almost scraping his knuckles on the dirt. The pitch has a tendency to break more than one delivered with an overhand motion. Pitches thrown via a submarine motion are also generally more difficult for hitters to see relative to pitches thrown via an overhand motion. These are the toughest pitches for same-side batters to hit (if the submarine pitcher is right handed, then he or she is the most difficult for a right handed hitter to hit). However, a lot of their breaking balls seem to float to an opposite-side batter.

For example, assume that right-handed submarine pitcher were to face right-handed hitter. From the view of the pitcher towards home plate, a submarine style fastball tends to break toward the right of the plate towards the batter. However, against a left-handed hitter, the pitch would break away from the batter, allowing him to wait on the ball for an easy hit. The converse is true for left-handed submarine pitchers: a fastball from left-handed submariner Mike Myers would break towards left-handed hitters, but away from right-handed hitters.

The rarity of submarine pitchers is sometimes attributed to the different technique required, rather than being an inferior pitching style. The technique is unknown to most coaches simply because the vast majority of pitchers use overarm motions. Thus, most young baseball pitchers are encouraged to throw overhand.

There are not many hard-throwing submarine pitchers. Perhaps the most notable was Carl Mays, whose unorthodox delivery possibly contributed to the fatal beaning of Ray Chapman.

In the present day, Matt Miller of the Cleveland Indians, Chad Bradford of the Baltimore Orioles, Cla Meredith of the San Diego Padres, Mike Myers of the New York Yankees, Byung-Hyun Kim of the Colorado Rockies, Kelly Wunsch of the Los Angeles Dodgers, Brian Shouse of the Milwaukee Brewers, Rick Bauer of the Texas Rangers, and Javier Lopez of the Boston Red Sox are regular submarine pitchers in the major leagues. Past submariners include Ted Abernathy, Elden Auker, Kent Tekulve and Dan Quisenberry.