WFAN David Wells Interview
Things I learned while listening to Mike Francessa interview David Wells, taken with a grain of salt:
- Wells and Pettitte tried to teach Rivera the cutter. Mel Stottlemyre finally talked him into using it.
- Posada and Varitek are the best catchers of Wells' generation.
- Wells only shook off Posada if he had a scuffed ball in his hands.
- Pitchers today just throw; they don't know how to pitch.
Comments, please. The skewed perspective was making me dizzy as I listened.
I hope someone asks Rivera tonight where he learned his famous cutter. Seriously.
I guess Ivan Rodriguez doesn't exist in David Wells' universe? Maybe he should replay the 2003 World Series. Great game five, by the way.
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"When he first emerged in the major leagues, in 1995 and '96, his primary pitch was a sailing four-seam fastball that he usually threw high in the strike zone. Rivera would throw a 96-mile-an-hour fastball thigh high for a strike, and then he would throw the next belly-button high, and the next chest high, and they would keep swinging, and mostly missing.
But major league hitters are adaptable. ''They started making adjustments on him, once they had seen him,'' Girardi said. ''They didn't always swing at that high ball.''
Rivera realized, too, that all those strikeouts would take their toll on him, eventually. And, in fact, some American League scouts felt he tired at the end of the 1997 season. Rivera wanted to become more efficient, to pitch in the bottom half of the strike zone and generate more ground balls, rather than strikeouts.
Rivera found that, with the right grip, he could throw what is known as a cut fastball. When throw by a right-handed pitcher, a cutter veers toward a left-handed batter.
Mike Stanton, the Yankees reliever, believes Rivera's cut fastball to be something of a freak of nature, because Rivera releases his cutter in almost the same way a quarterback throws a football — the fingers held to the side of the ball, rather than over the top, as almost all fastballs are thrown.
When facing right-handed batters, Rivera sometimes use a two-seam fastball. When thrown by a right-handed pitcher, it will veer back into a right-handed batter.
''He has become someone who really likes to pitch inside,'' Posada said.
Inside, and down. Girardi said that in 1995 and 1996, he would set a high target with his mitt, and Rivera would throw high fastballs. Now the Yankees catchers set low targets, in the bottom half of the strike zone, often just underneath the hands of both left-handed and right-handed batters."
**
Posada/Varitek: Pudge, Piazza, Javy Lopez say hi.
Pitchers today don't know how to pitch: Every former player says this. There is archived proof of former players from the 1800's said it about current players in the 1920's, and former players from the 1960's said it about players in the 1980's.
Buck Showalter said last week that Rivera picked up the ball one day in the outfield and tossed the ball differently and made the cutter on his own.
Other people tried to take credit for it, like Tony Cloninger.