Pursue your dreams as passionately as these pitchers swing the bat
We've hit late September, and naturally, things are tight. Every day brings a new game with postseason implications, full of dramatic dingers and harrowing escapes. It's tremendous, but it's also ... extremely stressful.
So, before the pennant race reaches its conclusion, we wanted spotlight one last regular season eccentricity: Pitchers swinging very, very poorly. Because if anything can help you locate your zen, it's a Bartolo Colon plate appearance.
Betances hadn't swung a bat in a game since high school, but that didn't stop him from going big -- and channeling some Gary Sheffield bat waggle:
bAN ThE DH. pic.twitter.com/8HZH40foyI
— Cut4 (@Cut4) June 26, 2018
There's an unspoken pact between pitchers that, when facing their counterpart at the plate, they'll take it a little easy and stick to fastballs. So you can forgive Tanaka for thinking that this
Cardinals Minor Leaguer
At last, an answer to the philosophical query, "If, after years of dreaming and hard work, you finally got the chance to hit in a professional game, just how hard would you swing?"
Bartolo Colon
No list like this could be complete without a little Bartolo -- even if he's in the AL now:
Of course, Bartolo isn't the only one in danger of losing his helmet:
Forcing other pitchers to try to hit
Folty's turned himself into an NL Cy Young dark horse this season. But even more importantly, he's among the game's most amusing at-bats. It's as though he's crafting an interpretation of a Mission Impossible helicopter chase:
Sometimes you just need to lie down: