It's not every day that you see a pitcher throw an eephus pitch -- a high-arching, off-speed pitch -- for a strike. It's even more rare to see a position player throw that pitch perfectly during a game. But in Saturday's game between the Oakland Athletics and Texas Rangers, fans saw an absolute beauty from Rangers infielder Brock Holt.
With the A's leading the Rangers 12-3 in the eighth inning on Saturday, the Rangers turned to Holt with the game out of hand. Holt ended up tossing a 31 mph eephus pitch for a perfect strike to A's batter Josh Harrison.
According to MLB, this is the slowest pitch ever thrown during a game since pitches began getting tracked by current technology in 2008:
Brock Holt stepped up to the mound and threw a 31-MPH strike‼️
— The Athletic MLB (@TheAthleticMLB) August 7, 2021
🎥 @BallySportsSW pic.twitter.com/S6HoptBVmm
It happened on the first pitch that Holt threw and it was just his third career appearance on the mound since entering the majors back in 2012. It was an absolutely mind-boggling pitch to watch, since the ball went out of the broadcast's camera frame due to the high arc.
Later in the inning, Holt threw a 34 mph eephus pitch and a 77 mph fastball to Tony Kemp. That's quite a stark contrast, to say the least.
Holt pitched a full scoreless inning and only surrendered one hit during the frame. Considering that Holt had a 13.50 career ERA coming into the game, this was all pretty impressive.
