The Cincinnati Reds are the worst team in baseball, and on most days, they hardly look like a big-league club. Thursday was not one of those days. The Reds actually looked great!
But even in a 20-5 win over the Cubs, the Reds still managed to have themselves an embarrassing moment — albeit brief.
With the game already out of hand in the eighth inning, the Cubs put in shortstop Andrelton Simmons to pitch that final half inning. Now, Simmons is one of the best defensive shortstops in baseball history with a cannon for an arm. He’s been clocked throwing 94 mph from shortstop, which could have translated to some serious heat on the mound.
Simmons, though, went with a different approach.
Andrelton Simmons, Sick 45mph…Pitch. 🤒 pic.twitter.com/szn6SDb1Jg
— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) May 26, 2022
Instead of showing off the arm, Simmons decided to throw exclusively looping breaking balls to the Reds hitters. He threw as slowly as 39 mph and topped out at 79 mph (once). He made history with this pitch to Kyle Farmer.
Slowest pitch on record to get a whiff in MLB history! 🐌 https://t.co/E9mqCzBAta
— Codify (@CodifyBaseball) May 26, 2022
According to Codify Baseball, the 44.9 mph “slider” was the slowest pitch to draw a swinging strike in baseball history (or at least since these types of things were tracked). Farmer could only smile about missing that meatball of a pitch. He did eventually single on the at-bat, and the Reds went on to score five runs off Simmons who really should have showed off this arm:
90.6 MPH turn and throw, stealing an out pic.twitter.com/WFrXYhmp3O
— . (@EOF34) April 2, 2019
Still, baseball fans had plenty of thoughts about that historic swinging strike.
