A groundball pitcher, sometimes referred to as "wormkillers" for the number of balls that hit the dirt and "kill worms" is a pitcher that relies on getting hitters to hit into ground outs instead of flyballs or strikeouts.
Most groundball pitchers rely heavily pitches with good downward movement (sink), such as the sinker, the two-seam fastball, and the splitter/forkball. These pitches are used to 'jam' hitters, causing them to hit the ball into the ground, and to an infielder. As a result, many groundball pitchers have a very high groundout to flyout ratio (GO-AO), and a high number of double plays turned. Examples include Arizona Diamondbacks pitcher Brandon Webb, Cleveland Indians pitcher Derek Lowe, Colorado Rockies pitcher Aaron Cook, Minnesota Twins pitcher Nick Blackburn and Washington Nationals pitcher Chien-Ming Wang.
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