Elwer features the curve…and the familiar release of snapping the hand and wrist, spinning the seams of the baseball against the resistance of the air. (Press Pros Feature Photos)
He claims he’s worked on perfecting the curveball since he was a youngster. So it’s no surprise that when Blue Jays pitcher Cam Elwer needed an out or advantage in Friday’s win over Tiffin Calvert, he was confident in bending the baseball around the opposition’s bat.
Akron, OH – In the game of baseball the ability to hit the breaking pitch – the curveball, if you will – has always been the separator with those that can hit when the chips are down…and them that can’t.
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Many are the stories of those that signed to play professionally, and yet couldn’t make it out of A ball because “they couldn’t hit the curve.”
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So common is the phrase that it’s an almost instant diagnosis for baseball failure.
The ‘curve’ is the most common name for the pitch that you make change direction by snapping your wrist and the seams of the ball make it bend down and away from the hitter through resistance to the air, or atmosphere.
At higher levels of baseball it’s called ‘Charlie’ or ‘Uncle Chuck’.
Some call it the ‘equalizer’…’the hook’…or ‘yakker’.
Hall of fame pitche Bert Blyleven simply called it ‘my friend’. His was that good – legendary.
Old-timers even called it…’the yellow hammer’. I’ve never heard an explanation for that one.
Hollywood even made a movie about it a decade ago when no less than Clint Eastwood starred in a film entitled Trouble With The Curve, a story about a professional draft choice that, you guessed it, couldn’t hit the curveball.
And Friday, in Delphos St. John’s 5-3 win over Tiffin Calvert, the Blue Jays’ Cam Elwer used his own version to cause trouble for the Senecas. Through the first four innings Elwer no-hit Calvert by continually throwing the curve, either for a called strike, or a swing-and-miss pitch that contributed to his six strikeouts, or created the advantage of surprise when he threw the fastball.
Then freshman Cam Elwer stunned Columbus Grove with a complete-game, 3-hit shutout back in the 2023 district final…by throwing the curveball.
Elwer’s is a good one, a three-quarter bender that breaks sharply down and away from right-hand hitters…or into the hands of lefthanders, jamming their bat.
“I have the utmost confidence in the curve,” he smiled while explaining following Friday’s win. “Since I was a young guy playing travel baseball, I’ve always thrown the curve. I know I don’t have the great fastball, or velo (velocity), so I know that I have to hit my spots with the curveball. I was able to do that for the first four innings today, then I lost a little of it in the fifth and sixth. But I was able to get it back in the seventh.”
Unlike the fastball, the curve is more of a ‘touch’ pitch. You have to have a feel for it – when to bend your hand and wrist at just the right moment to impart the correct angle of spin, height, and direction. Ideally, you want to throw it at the middle of the plate and break it out of the strike zone, causing hitters to swing and miss.
Originally developed by a pitcher named William Cummings (nicknamed ‘Candy’) in the 19th century, for many years cynics claimed that it was nothing more than an optical illusion. They claimed…it was impossible to make a baseball curve simply by spinning its seams against the wind.
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Cam Elwer, and thousands of others over the years, beg to differ.
“It is a feel pitch,” says Elwer. “But when you really have it you ‘feel’ it both physically and mentally. And when you lose a bit of your advantage with it, you lose a little bit of both…the physical feel and the mental edge.”
Former Twins and Pirates pitcher Bert Blyleven shows the grip he used to strike out 3,701 hitters in the major leagues.
Bert Blyleven once said that when he had his best curveball he had a mental picture of what it would look like to the hitter at the moment it reached home plate. “If I would envision it, I could repeat it time after time after time,” he said.
Such was Elwer’s curveball on Friday. His best fastball was clocked behind home plate at 83 miles per hour. His best curve came in at about 72 mph. But when Calvert hitters began looking for the slower breaking pitch, the fastball looked ten miles per hour faster. Hence, they swung behind the fastball, and lunged to catch up with the curve.
“You have to be strong-willed to stay with it,” says Elwer, who frankly has the same mental picture when he shoots the three-pointer in basketball and makes it more than 50% of the time. “I just visualize my cues and how I’m releasing it.”
Just like shooting a basketball.
“So when I start missing with it I go back to visualizing my cues, honing in on the mental picture of how it works when I’m throwing it correctly.”
Suffering from a late-night flight from Furman University on Thursday, a short night’s sleep, and the stress of the moment Friday, he began to lose a bit of his edge in the fifth and sixth innings. He began to miss his spots and Calvert quickly collected three runs on six hits over the final three innings.
Elwer ‘revisualizes’ during the fifth inning after surrendering two of Tiffin Calvert’s three runs.
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But needing to finish the game in order to save as many pitches from relievers as possible for Saturday’s title game with Leipzig, he willed himself to the finish.
“I’m not using anything as an excuse,” he said in reference to the trip and short sleep. “It’s just for the moment in those two innings I lost a little bit, I guess. But I got it back for the final three outs.”
Such it is for those who struggle to hit the curveball. Elwer didn’t strike out so many, but of his 112 pitches thrown, it seemed that at least half were…if not the ‘yellow hammer’, the equalizer. The curve helped hold a good-hitting Calvert team to just six hits.
“I’m surprised to hear about the game,” said Ottawa Hills coach Chris Hardman by phone, afterwards. “We played Calvert this year (a 13-3 loss), and they were one of the best-hitting teams I’ve seen all year.”
Credit Cam Elwer…and trouble with the curve.
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