Pedro Martinez’s bullpen session today had him throwing 15 pitches with his eyes closed.
“I missed on four of them,” Martinez said.
The purpose of the drill is to hone his muscle memory in his wind-up and delivery.
“It makes you focus on your body and doing things naturally,” Martinez said.
4 Comments
Though the Force is strong with this one, I don’t relish being a bullpen catcher staring down a blind Petey. May the athletic supporter be with you.
That must be something to see.
If it works as advertised why don’t they use it at game time? It certainly would give a batter pause to crowd the plate.
It was used a long time ago. The Yankees had a reliever named Ryan Duren who threw nothing but heat. He wore very thick glasses and when he came he and Yogi ated as if he couldn’t see the plate. His first couple warm up pitches would be to the backstop netting and he’d gradually start lowering them . There were some very timid at bats for his first opponent.
Ryne Duren!!!!! That goes back back to the days we didn’t have NL ball in NYC. Spent a lot of Sunday afternoon’s in the Stadium, always doubleheaders… 75 cents in the bleachers or if we splurged, buck thirty for grandstand general admission.