Tatsuya Imai's Wrong-Way Slider: A Pitching Revolution

0:00It's April 7th, from first pitch to the final out. This is MLB News today, powered by AI. I'm Cory with the story. Houston Astros pitcher Tatsuya Imai just lit a baseball with his wild wrong way slider. For a right-handed thrower, sliders normally break 4 inches toward the glove side, but a My's averages 6 inches the other way toward his arm. Side, that's a 10-inch difference from the norm, making it move like a change-up instead of a breaking ball. We knew about this pitch from scouting reports when Imai is signed from Japan's Saitama Sabu Lions this winter. In his first two big league starts, he showcased a big time against the Oakland Athletics, throwing 9 strikeouts in a scoreless outing at, 87 miles per hour. Hitters are baffled. Oakland's Jeff McNeill said it went every which way, left and right, something you rarely see. Among over 200 pitchers throwing at least 10 sliders this season, only 9 get any arm side run. My leaves them by 3 times as much.

1:00Experts dug into why. Imai's low side arm slide, twice as side arm as others, plus scooping under the ball at release, creates that screw ball like run without actually being. One, it's miles from typical sliders, even topping last year's leaders and guys like Yesevaj. Dropline Labs jumped in, using tech to reverse engineer the spin and seams with pitchers trying to copy it. This wrong way gym has the whole pitching world buzzing, sparking new ideas for what's possible on the mound.