Good baseball article: how to throw a changeup

I’m not a NY Mets fan, but here’s a really neat feature about their newly acquired superstar pitcher, Johan Santana.

And he’s a rarity – a pitcher whose strike-out pitch is a changeup.

Santana’s Changeup: Hitters Never See It Coming – New York Times

Six years after Santana began meticulously honing his four-seam grip as a starter in Class AAA, he is still doing it. Except now he is doing it as the premier pitcher in baseball and the new ace of the Mets. Now Santana, a two-time Cy Young award winner, is doing it with a changeup that makes batters bend and buckle.

“The thing that makes his changeup so tough is how he controls it,” Yankees first baseman Jason Giambi said. “He doesn’t bounce it. It just comes to the plate like a fastball and falls off.”

Mets second baseman Luis Castillo, who was Santana’s teammate with the Twins, added: “It’s the best changeup in the game. It’s a nasty pitch.”

Santana’s changeup would not be as vicious if he did not complement it with a solid fastball. Rick Peterson, the Mets’ pitching coach, described the fastball-changeup combination as “probably the most devastating” in the major leagues, especially when a pitcher consistently throws fastballs for strikes. …