![]() Once I was healthy, that arm slot stuck.” “I had this goofy cast on my leg and I was teaching myself how to pitch and that’s just how I did it,” Stripling said, comparing his motion to the slow, rigid pitching machines that feed batting cages across the country. It wasn’t until he couldn’t use his lower half that he began to mess around with a pitching motion using his upper body, which permanently changed him from junior-varsity infielder to MLB-bound pitcher. He played varsity football (as a wide receiver) and, of course, basketball (as a forward) before he lettered in baseball. Mobility, something you develop in one portion of the body while it is restricted in another part, apparently.Īt 18 years old, a senior at Carroll High (Southlake, Texas), Stripling was barely a baseball player, let alone a pitcher. ![]() To get my arm up into that position, yeah, that would hurt. “I tell you what, I don’t have the shoulder mobility that he does, so I guarantee that it would hurt. Hjelle, some 8-9 inches lower, can barely comprehend the physics of it. With his right hand almost directly above his head, the ball leaves Stripling’s fingertips an average of 6.97 feet above the ground, the highest release point of any qualified starter in the majors last season (Justin Verlander, also just under 7 feet, comes closest). “It’s definitely something that you don’t see a whole lot,” said Sean Hjelle, who despite his status (at 6-foot-11) as one of the two tallest men to throw a pitch in a major-league game releases the ball considerably lower than Stripling. Not only do batters barely know what’s coming with Stripling’s kitchen-sink repertoire (up to six pitches, with the addition of a second changeup), it’s coming at them from an angle they rarely see: directly over the top. There is one lingering effect of Stripling’s ill-fated dunk attempt, now nearly a decade and a half in the past: It’s what he credits as the origin of one of the majors’ most unique deliveries. This is important because, as Stripling says with a chuckle, “I don’t have PTSD.” And wouldn’t you, if one attempt went so awry that it put your leg in a cast? ![]() Standing an athletic 6-foot-3, Ross Stripling wants you to know that he can dunk.
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