What Color is Your 'Parachute Changeup'?

"Tanner Scheppers" might sound more like the kid whose books you used to dump in the junior high school hallway than the potential 2010 MVP and 2011 Cy Young Award winner, but Sports Illustrated says Scheppers might be the missing link the Texas Rangers are looking for as summer turns to fall.

Scheppers features a devastating batch of arrows in his quiver, says SI, including a "parachute changeup."

"With a high-90s fastball, a looping curve and a parachute changeup, the 23-year-old Scheppers has the repertoire to be a dominant starter."

Pitchers are known to "pull the string" on a good changeup, but it appears the "string" is sometimes a ripcord.

Scheppers isn't the only one with a parachute changeup.

Twins pitcher Francisco Liriano used to have one, and may have one again, wrote AaronGleeman.com at the start of the season.

"Even with some of his velocity returning Liriano isn't the unhittable phenom who overpowered the league with a mid-90s fastball, parachute changeup, and high-80s slider of death in 2006."

When you think devastating changeup, you of course think of Liriano's old teammate, Johan Santana.

"He's a power pitcher, just like Randy Johnson...he's got a parachute changeup...he's definitely the best lefty in the league," Mike Sweeney said on baseball-almanac.com.

Then there's Cole Hamels, whom Denver Post described in 2009 as "World Series MVP a year ago with outstanding fastball and a parachute changeup he'll throw on any count."

While "parachute changeup" kicks up a modest 700-plus links in Google, the phrase actually goes back at least a decade. David Cone used the expression to describe the change-of-pace possessed by Pedro Martinez, then of the Red Sox, after a 17 K performance against the Yankees back in 1999.

Coming full circle to its Tanner Scheppers descrip, the Coney quote also comes from Sports Illustrated:

"He had three dominating pitches—an overpowering fastball, a knee-buckling curve and a parachute changeup. I don't think I've ever seen anyone with all three."

Scheppers and his sky-diving sinker may play a key relief role for the Rangers in the playoffs. And with Pedro having more lives than Jason from Friday the 13th, who knows if Martinez--and his paratropping pitch--will end up on the hill for a playoff team in October.

[image: sonsofsamhorn.net]

When a Starter is Also a Stopper

I enjoy it when a baseball terms means two very different things. Take "hook," for instance. On one hand, it's a pitcher's curveball. ("Jon Lester's got his good 'hook' today.")

On the other hand, it's what a manager does to his pitcher when he doesn't have a very good hook on the day. ("Looks like Joe Girardi's giving Burnett the 'hook' here in the fourth...")

Then there's "stopper." The most common baseball usage is, a starting pitcher--typically an ace--who can be counted on to stop a losing streak. Johan Santana comes to mind. With closer K-Rod simmering in a jail cell somewhere in Queens, Santana told skipper Jerry Manuel he could go 10, if needed, before yesterday's game. He only needed 9 in blanking the Rockies. (Don't Mess With the Johan! crowed the Mets blogs.)

Almost exactly a year ago, the NY Daily News saluted Santana for being a stopper.

Johan Santana plays sweep stopper with arm, bat as Mets beat Padres, read the headline.

Any great starter has been described as a stopper: Curt Schilling, Randy Johnson, CC Sabathia, etc.

But stopper can also be a synonym for closer--not the ace starter, but the blue-chip finisher.

Of course, outside of baseball, a stopper is the thing that keeps the water in your bathtub. There is also the gobstopper, which would probably work as a tub stopper should yours be out of commission.

Back to baseball. A recent New York Times Magazine cover story on Mariano Rivera, "The King of the Closers," got into the short history of the closer role. James Traub wrote:

The great Yankees teams of the ’70s relied on one such fabled stopper, Rich Gossage, better known as Goose.

Traub's closer-as-stopper usage is less common than starter-as stopper. (Starter as stopper...what a concept!) I'll chalk it up to Traub not being a baseball guy. He's been with the Times Magazine for eons and has written books on everything from India to Times Square to Kofi Annan. Smart guy, indeed. Baseball guy? Not so sure.

But get this: Answers.com says "stopper" is, in fact, a baseball closer.

Check out the third definition:

1.A device, such as a cork or plug, that is inserted to close an opening.
2.One that causes something to stop: a conversation stopper.
3.Baseball. A relief pitcher, especially one called upon to protect a lead.

So if you're going by the book--or at least Answers.com--a stopper is a reliever.

But if you're going by the baseball book, a stopper is a starter.

[image: NY Daily News]

Johan Santana Tussles With 'Fan'

Spectators were fanning themselves amidst the 95 degree gametime heat at CitiField last night (would it be too confusing to say "fans" were "fanning" themselves?), and Mets ace Johan Santana was fanning Reds--he K'd five different batters on the night.

More importantly, what Santana wasn't fanning was his mitt. Santana had suffered through a mini slump that leveled his record at a very pedestrian 5-5, presumably due in part to the lefty tipping his pitches.

Reports David Waldstein of the NY Times:

Several veteran Mets noticed that Santana was fanning his glove as he switched to a changeup grip. Santana assumed that if his teammates saw it, so too did the Twins, his former team, who battered him for five runs last Saturday.

Opposing players had spotted a tell, in poker parlance, in Santana: spreading his glove wide in front of him, like a preening peacock, before throwing his changeup. Adds Waldstein last week:

Santana, who gave up at least four runs in each of his last four starts, spent the past week working on keeping his glove at his waist when he gets in the set position before throwing a pitch.

That is the same position his hands were in when he threw 19 consecutive scoreless innings in late May and early June. But since then, his hands have drifted up toward his chest. There, it becomes more evident to hitters if he widens his glove while changing grips on his pitches.

Of course, the more common usage for "fanning" in baseball is striking a batter out, an homage to the children-on-the-sandlot taunt of "feel the breeze!" after a kid swings and misses. It's a flexible word: a pitcher fans a batter, and a batter fans against a pitcher. It's the same verb for both players, yet both players go through very different actions in the process.

Santana appears to have his fanning woes worked out, which should mean he'll be fanning more batters in his future starts.

We can't confirm that it was Dakota Fanning giving the finger to fans from a CitiField luxury box last night.

Maybe the jock-talk outlet The FAN has details.

[image: sportige.com]

What's Nastier Than Nasty?

Several years ago, then-Mets catcher Mike Piazza acknowledged one of the great cliches in sports.

Piazza may have been useless at throwing out base-stealers, but Big Mike was no dummy: He was a media-savvy guy and a decent interview after games. (Full disclosure: I may or may not have started the rumor that Mike Piazza starred in the movie Teen Wolf under a different name.)

Speaking with a New York Magazine reporter, Piazza opined:

"I've been trying to invent a new cliché to replace stepping up," he says. "That's the most overused term in sports. I've got to invent a new one. I'll test out a few phrases and see what catches on. How cool would that be, if you could think up a term like step up and see all these guys using it in interviews? I need to start watching more of Don King's interviews. I heard him say one time, 'These are tribulations and infractications! These are hypocrisies and hypotheticals!' He's funny, man -- he's amazing. Maybe I can borrow something from him."

A decade later, here's another baseball cliche that needs to be retired: A "nasty" pitch.

I tuned into This Week in Baseball over the weekend for the first time in years. Notably, and perhaps of no surprise to anyone, there's really nothing about the current week in baseball in the show; ESPN and its myriad tentacles of course have covered all that ad nauseum. Instead, it focuses on longer-form insider topics, such as who's got the toughest pitch in the game.

That segment showed clips of several pitchers showing their signature pitches. Accompanying each pitch was the live announcing; out of maybe 20 clips, all but two had the word "nasty" in the call.

Ben Sheets' curve? Nasty!

Johan Santana's changeup? Nasty!

Tim Lincecum's entire repertoire? Nasty, nasty, nasty!

The two non-nasty descriptions, if you're scoring at home, were "devastating" and "filthy."

Nasty is so overused that it's taken, well, the nastiness out of it. We're here in New York, so we're particularly attuned to pitches being called nasty due to a certain bat-smashing closer taking the hill every couple days, though the Yankee games are so damn long that Mariano is almost taking the stage around the same time Jay and Dave are.

So let's put "nasty" to rest. Filthy, I'm fine with. But I'm open for suggestions. Any announcers around the country coming up with good substitutions for nasty? Anyone else like the sound of nastardly?

[image: outstandingcollectibles.com]