Cutter

In baseball, a cutter, or cut fastball, is a type of fastball which breaks slightly as it reaches home plate. This pitch is somewhere between a slider and a fastball, as it is usually thrown faster than a slider but with more motion than a typical fastball. A common technique used to throw a cutter is to release a two-seam fastball with slight pressure from the tip of the middle finger. When a batter is able to hit a cutter pitch, it often results in a ground ball leading to an easy out.

Professional practitioners

Mariano Rivera stumbled upon the pitch^[1], and Andy Pettitte, Roy Halladay, Scott Feldman, Mark Buehrle, Jon Lester, Rick Porcello, Dan Haren, Ryan Madson and John Danks all use the cutter effectively. In 2008, Jesse Litsch threw a cutter 43.4% of the time, the highest rate among major league starters, and Jamie Moyer threw one 29.5% of the time, the most in the NL.[1]

When the cutter is working correctly, mainly against opposite-handed batters (i.e. a right handed pitcher facing a left handed hitter), the pitch can crack and split a hitter's bat, hence the pitch's occasional nickname of "the buzzsaw". Ryan Klesko, then of the Atlanta Braves, broke three bats in a single at-bat during the 1999 World Series while facing Mariano Rivera. Switch hitters have been known to bat right-handed against the right-handed Rivera (the "wrong" side; switch hitters generally bat from the side of home plate opposite to the pitcher's throwing hand) to avoid shattering their bats.^[2][3]

References

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