Pitching

Another important aspect of baseball is pitching. The pitcher is an extremely important and heavily relied on player; when the pitcher has a bad day, the team usually loses. For this reason, most agree that the pitcher is the hardest position in baseball.

It is the pitcher's job to initiate each play by throwing the ball home. He usually tries to pitch the ball in the "strike zone", an imaginary box that is as wide as the home plate and expands from the batter's knees to his chest letters. If a pitch is thrown in this area without the hitter touching it, it should technically be called a strike. If the pitcher achieves throwing 3 strikes, it is recorded as a strike out, and the batter is out.

Pitchers use a number of different pitches to fool the hitter. The pitch that pretty much ever pitcher has is a fastball. There are two main types of fastballs: a four-seam and a two-seam. A 4sfb is generally a faster and more accurate pitch, while the 2sfb is generally a slightly slower pitch that "moves" to the left or right while simoltaniously "diving" toward the ground; it usually move in this manner about 3-4 inches. Sidearm and submarine pitchers and use the 2sfb to great affects, because there unique arm slot allows them to spin the ball more to the side. Sidearm and submarine pitchers can often make a 2sfb move a 8 inches or more.

Along with the fastballs, a pitcher may also contain these in his repetoire: a curveball, slider, change up, sinker, knuckleball, and cutter, among a few other pitches.

For more information on some of the other common pitches, visit this site:

http://www.thecompletepitcher.com/different_baseball_pitches.htm