As the major league seasons plows through June, the talking heads at ESPN are beginning to realize what I have been saying for at least a month. This year in baseball, is the "year of the pitcher." Of course, yours truly has blogged already twice about the fact that the balance of power is swing back towards the pitchers. Case in point, yesterday, the Chicago White Sox played the Chicago Cubs. Gavin Floyd was on the mound for since the Sox and Ted Lilly took the ball for the Cubs. What resulted was nothing short of masterful on both sides. Gavin and Ted both took no-nos into the 7th inning, where Floyd ultimately surrendered a few hits and the only run of the game. Lilly on the other hand, kept the White Sox hitless into the 9th when Juan Pierre finally ended the no-hit bid. It had been 8 starts since Lilly's last win, and despite a roller coaster ninth for the Cubs' bullpen, the game ended with a win for the Cubbies. I had a chance to study Lilly during the game last night and felt it was reason enough for Lilly to be this week's Big Leaguer Breakdown.
Here is a clip from youtube user cleveworld of Lilly warming up in Spring Training.
Ted Lilly makes his living interchanging an assortment of off speed pitches to complement a mid 80's fastball. While not over-powering, Lilly is also successful by utilizing some deception in his delivery. It is difficult to see, but at the 22 second mark, we see how Lilly rotates his an entire body and front leg around, showing his jersey number to the hitter. By doing so, Lilly does an excellent job of hiding the ball until he rotates back forward. He also keep the ball in his glove behind his back shoulder as you can see in the video. At the 23 second mark, you can see the hand break as his shoulders tilt back and the hand drops behind his back leg. The ball is still hidden at this point. Personally, I don't like how far he has collapsed on his back leg here, but moving forward, we see the tell-tale elbows elevating and hips rotate at the same time. Lilly could have used his inward to turn to try and develop more velocity, but it is my feeling that is merely for deception. I feel this way because you see very little "explosion" upon release of the ball. Going further in the video, we see how upright Lilly is as he finishes his pitch. There is very little upper half tilt forward at release either. By staying upright, the tends to flatten some of his pitches, but also helps to increase some of the balls lateral (side to side) movement. On a the next pitch in the sequence, we do see Lilly do a better job of finishing over his front foot and locating down in the zone. It is important to notice how controlled Ted is as the ball is released. Undoubtedly, this is a product of his control getting to the foot strike.
Repeating this delivery is made possible by how deliberate Ted Lilly is with his front foot and front leg when it is planted. Instead of being out of control, he lightly lets the foot plant and works down over the mid-line of the body. This is important to aide in the repeating of the body.
So we see a unique aspect of the pitching delivery in Lilly. His inward body rotation allows him to keep the ball hidden. It also allows him as well to put unique spin on his pitches as he rotates toward the midline and finish down.
Keep studying and post and questions.
Until Next Time!
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