Zac Gallen’s Nasty Mystery Pitch Fooled Everyone—Even the Poor Umpire

Diamondbacks starter Zac Gallen continued his impressive run of success on Wednesday night against the Royals—aided by a pitch that no one knew what to make of. 

For the fourth consecutive start, Gallen did not allow a run as Arizona won 2–0. He struck out 12 batters, none stranger than his sixth-inning punch-out of Vinnie Pasquantino. On a 2–2 count, Gallen threw what was supposed to be a changeup. But the pitch actually moved like a cutter, crossing up catcher José Herrera, who saw the ball go sailing past his glove. It hit home plate umpire Edwin Jimenez in the face, knocking his mask off. Pasquantino, meanwhile, swung helplessly through it. 

Zac Gallen's accidental Cut Change (7" of cut) fooled everyone...including Zac. pic.twitter.com/i3kkmZ1cOL

— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) April 27, 2023

Even Gallen was flummoxed by the pitch. Cameras showed him on the mound after he threw it looking awfully perplexed. 

“This was quite possibly the craziest pitch I’ve ever seen,” Pasquantino wrote on Twitter after the game. “I’ve never been more confused in my life. Was it a cutter? Was it a change up? Somehow it was both.”

According to Baseball Savant, Gallen does throw both a changeup and a cutter, but this particular pitch didn’t really behave like either one. It was clocked at 83.2 mph, way slower than his average cutter (88.2 mph). It had 12 inches of horizontal break, which is also way more than his cutter usually moves (4.6 inches). His average changeup has 13 inches of horizontal break—in the opposite direction. His changeup falls away from left-handed batters like Pasquantino, while this one ran in on his hands. And despite moving like a cutter, the pitch’s spin rate (1,405 rpm) was more on par with Gallen’s typical changeup (1,523 rpm) than his cutter (2,432 rpm). 

Statcast officially logged the pitch as a changeup, but it isn’t quite that simple.