Last pitch of Alabama v. Oklahoma game

Both pitchers pitched a great game...although the umpire was less than the model of consistency. She was calling strikes out of the zone.

Osorio had found that a pitch a couple of inches high in the middle of the plate was being called a strike. So, she started throwing that pitch...a lot. It was extremely effective. But, she got into a pattern. She would throw the same pitch two or three times until the umpire called it a strike. In other words, she got into a pattern. Patterns are deadly against good hitters.

Good batters started looking for that pitch. Sydney Romero almost hit it out in the 6th.

Two on in bottom of 8th. Knighten comes up. Osorio throws the rise up but in the middle of the plate, and game over.

Osorio is not calling the pitches...but, whoever was should not have fallen into a pattern.

A couple of other points...slow motion shows that she didn't get any back spin on the ball. So, it was simply a high fastball.

Knighten mishit the ball, and it still went out.

agree on the pattern point but Osario has a straight up WICKED riseball. Look, we can talk spin all day long, but a riseball just acts differently than a fastball and hers act like riseballs.

Here is a great test for whether a riseball is really a riseball, if you get disciplined hitters swinging at pitches out of the zone high consistently, you have a good riseball. If 90 percent of your pitches are riseballs and they still swing at it, then you have a great riseball, Osario has a great riseball.

Watched replay on espn.com. It was mentioned Osorio had injuried her index finger. It might explain the less effective rise.

jimcat said:

Watched replay on espn.com. It was mentioned Osorio had injuried her index finger. It might explain the less effective rise.

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She devoloped a blister last weekend vs UW.

I don't know that there really was a pattern. If you believe the announcers (why you do at your own risk), out of 125 pitches, she had thrown 113 riseballs, which is approx. equivalent to 90% riseballs. Not much of a pattern to worry about IMO!

I LOVED that game. (Yes a pitcher-guy here)

There was one slo-mo in the game where it showed Osario's RB spin and the axis was right at the camera which was just behind the plate on the right-hand batters side and up 10 feet (I am guessing) on the backstop (where the camera was). Far from "look at all that backspin" that the no-thinking-all-talking-announcer said....

With that not-so-textbook RB spin it has to be some other variable that makes Osario's rise so repeatably untouchable (until the 8th inning).

It would be neat to see an overlay of Osario's RB on top of another same-speed pitchers RB that is not nearly as effective. (meaning it does not get near the batter-swings-n-misses). I would submit that maybe we would then find the magic of Osario's RB and I would dare to say it would be a release-point-height thing with maybe a few extra rotations.

Any of you video-jockey's up for the task?

RubberBiscuit said:

I LOVED that game. (Yes a pitcher-guy here)

There was one slo-mo in the game where it showed Osario's RB spin and the axis was right at the camera which was just behind the plate on the right-hand batters side and up 10 feet (I am guessing) on the backstop (where the camera was). Far from "look at all that backspin" that the no-thinking-all-talking-announcer said....

With that not-so-textbook RB spin it has to be some other variable that makes Osario's rise so repeatably untouchable (until the 8th inning).

It would be neat to see an overlay of Osario's RB on top of another same-speed pitchers RB that is not nearly as effective. (meaning it does not get near the batter-swings-n-misses). I would submit that maybe we would then find the magic of Osario's RB and I would dare to say it would be a release-point-height thing with maybe a few extra rotations.

Any of you video-jockey's up for the task?

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There was also a very good slo mo of Parkers rise, which looked to have good backspin on it.

do you remember the time it was on the replay video? when it showed slo mo

sluggers said:

Both pitchers pitched a great game...although the umpire was less than the model of consistency. She was calling strikes out of the zone.

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The umpire was horrible. Her strike zone drifted throughout the game. There were periods in which she would call balls thrown well out of the K-zone strikes, and there were periods when she would call balls thrown in the K-zone as balls. Throughout the game her strike zone would drift.

Seems in this day in age that we could devise a gadget that an umpire could keep in their pocket that would buzz when the ball was thrown within the K-zone. This umpire surely needed help.

FiveFrameSwing said:

The umpire was horrible. Her strike zone drifted throughout the game. There were periods in which she would call balls thrown well out of the K-zone strikes, and there were periods when she would call balls thrown in the K-zone as balls. Throughout the game her strike zone would drift.

Seems in this day in age that we could devise a gadget that an umpire could keep in their pocket that would buzz when the ball was thrown within the K-zone. This umpire surely needed help.

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I have a sneaking suspicion that the K-Zone is a mathematical model that was brought directly over from baseball without ANY adjustment and slapped onto the softball field (usual treatment). If you noticed there was a lower-quarter-zone "strike" that umps across both games called a "ball" almost always.

Regardless I think I am eating my words earlier this year on the "strike-call-ability" of a riseball. The umps are calling upper zone strikes WAY more than I expected. BRAVO!