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Hello and welcome to episode 1837 of Effectively Wild a baseball podcast from fan graphs presented

by our Patreon supporters. I'm Ben Lemberg of the Ringer joined by Meg Rally of fan

graphs. Low Meg. Hello. I tell you about one of the most disappointing pitches I have ever seen.

It happened on Thursday. I think it was maybe the worst pitch possibly the worst pitch I've ever seen.

I don't know. That could be an overstatement but you know I'm always quick to celebrate

Shohei O'Connie's accomplishments. So I must be honest when he comes up short and the pitch

that he threw on Thursday to Rangers backup catcher Jonah Heim with the bases loaded was probably

one of the worst pitches I've ever seen at least relative to expectations because this was an

O2 pitch in the second inning with the bases loaded and Shohei O'Connie has been really devastating

on O2 counts in his career to this point and so you come into this pitch and you think okay you

have O'Connie he's up O2 you have Jonah Heim who was the number nine hitter for the Rangers he's

a 26 year old backup catcher he entered this game with a career 64 WRC plus in 335 major league

played appearances in a 203 251 352 slash line. This is not a time when you would expect damage to

be done but damage was done Jonah Heim hit a grand slam. Yeah he did. And the pitch that he hit it on

it was a splitter technically I mean going by the grip but it did not split it did not do anything

it did split one thing which is the strike zone it split the strike zone exactly down the center

like I have not calculated it but if you were to calculate the exact center of the strike zone

this pitch could not have been more than an inter-to away from there and it just sat there as O2

He said it hung up there or Heim also said that that's an understatement I think and so relative

to expectations because O'Connie on O2 entering this game going back to 2018 when he debuted among

...