Pitcher Pitcher In baseball, the pitcher is the player who throws the baseball from the pitcher's mound toward the catcher to begin each play, with the goal of retiring a batter, who attempts to either make contact with the pitched ball or draw a walk. In the numbering system used to record defensive plays, the pitcher is assigned the number 1. The pitcher is often considered the most important player on the defensive side of the game, and as such is situated at the right end of the defensive spectrum. There are many different types of pitchers, such as the starting
Fly ball pitcher a fly ball pitcher will tend to give up more home runs, resulting in a higher earned run average. Examples include pitchers Sid Fernandez, Ted Lilly, Chris Young and Marco Estrada. Fly ball pitcher A fly ball pitcher is a type of baseball pitcher who produces an above-average number of fly balls, typically by keeping his fastball high up in the strike zone and relying on late movement to cause the batter to be unable to make solid contact. This designation is constructed around the ground ball fly ball ratio, which measures how frequently a pitcher gets batters out on