Vicente Padilla’s Eephus Pitch

Quick Eephus Definition: An Eephus pitch (also spelled Ephus) in baseball is considered a junk pitch with very low speed. The delivery from the pitcher has very low velocity and usually catches the hitter off-guard. A few Famous Eephus Throwers: Bill Lee (named his the spaceball) Rip Sewell Pascual Perez Kazuhito Tadano Steve Hamilton Vicente Padilla is beginning to garner a reputation around the NL for his Eephus pitch. Vin Scully refers to the 50 – 60 MPH pitch as the ‘soap bubble’. It goes without saying that Padilla’s Eepuhs falls off of the table: Opponents success vs Padilla pitches (less than 63 MPH) Due to injury Padilla has started only 11 games this season. With a total of 76 (74 non IBB pitches) below 63MPH pitches, he’s averaging close to 7 Eephus’ per game. The Eephus itself is a fairly effective pitch. It has yielded 15 outs vs only 1 hit, an HR. Outside of that the pitch is right around 50/50 in being called a strike or a ball...