The hardest pitch to hit in the majors this year

[Providence A's]

Who has the hardest pitch to hit this year? Santana? Halladay? Lincecum? Haren? Nope...Oakland A's MR Michael Wuertz.

Wuertz's slider hardest pitch to hit | MLB.com: News

Wuertz's slider has been the toughest pitch to hit in all of baseball this season.

The pitch has a 49.7 percent swing-and-miss rate, narrowly ahead of Royals starter Zack Greinke's slider (49.0 percent) for tops in the Major Leagues, according to baseball analyst Harry Pavlidis in a July 15 report in the Wall Street Journal.

The Cubs' Rich Harden's changeup (48.6 percent), the Yankees' A.J. Burnett's curveball (48.3 percent) and the Rockies' Jorge De La Rosa's slider (42.5 percent) round out the top five.

He's 5 - 1 on the season with 2 saves, a 2.84 ERA, 57 k's in 44 1/3 innings, and a WHIP of 0.99. He's been a great pickup for the pen this year. A nice trade by Beane for minor league fillers IF Justin Sellers and OF Richie Robnett.

[ljshorty89]

Amazing to hear that. You'd thing something like Santana's changeup, K-Rod's slider, Rivera's Cutter, or something like that would be number 1.

But anyway, great job by Wuertz, always seemed to have more talent than he showed in Chicago...

[Witlon]

I was figuring it'd be someone like Mark DiFelice and his miniscule ERA with a low-mid 80's fastball.

Wuertz makes sense though with his sub 1 WHIP overall, and great stuff.

[Providence A's]

2 more k's tonight in a 1 inning save of 14 - 13 comeback win for the A's (they trailed 12 - 2).

[nick]

I ****ing hated that trade then, and hate it now. Robnett is awful and Sellers is a defensive replacement.

Sure, our pen is the least of our problems, but Wuertz was a good solider with us. Never got much of a chance to stick, he was always up & down.

I just wish we could have gotten something that could have been of use. We basically gave him up for free, only to tender Chad Gaudin (who we were keeping instead of Wuertz, supposedly) and cut him (leaving us on the hook for his 2mil+)...

Just some dumb moves.

[Providence A's]

that's OK. Wuertz was pretty easy to hit today as he gave up 4 hits, 3 runs, and 2 homers in an inning against the Yankees to raise his ERA to 3.23.

nah...it's still a horrible deal by Hendry on that one.

[nick]

Yankees are mashing everything in site right now... the only thing I'd worry about with Wuertz is overuse. But he seems like the type of guy who has a rubber arm so to speak..