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Here's what it's like to face Japanese submarine-throwing pitcher Rei Takahashi

By Matt Monagan

Hitting off a pro baseball pitcher is hard. They have curveballs and fastballs and changeups and knuckleballs and whatever demonic, straight out of hell nonsense this is.
There are also submariners, who, with any one of these pitches, also scrape their knuckles off the dirt to mess with batters' heads. Do you want to know what it's like to face a submariner? Allow Ronald Acuña Jr. to demonstrate what it's like to face a submariner:

That's Fukuoka Softbank Hawks pitcher Rei Takahashi and, yes, that arm angle is not the easiest to pick up. Phenom (at least in America) Juan Soto also went down on strikes to the 23-year-old:



Takahashi pitched two innings in Samurai Japan's Game 2 win, giving up two runs while striking out three. Here's another, much prettier, angle of his mesmerizing motion:

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