- Zack Greinke threw a 51-mph pitch to Renato Núñez on Tuesday night.
- It was the slowest pitch Greinke has thrown.
- Greinke had given up four runs to that point and gave up two more after the strange pitch.
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Houston Astros pitcher Zack Greinke had a night to forget on Monday against the Detroit Tigers but still delivered one of his career's most memorable pitches.
After giving up four runs in the first four innings, including three home runs, Greinke faced Tigers third baseman Renato Núñez with men on first and second and no outs in the fifth inning.
In that critical moment in which the game could have been completely blown open, Greinke decided to get creative, throwing a 51-mph eephus pitch right down the middle of the strike zone.
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With a man in scoring position, no outs, and a 2-0 count, Núñez took the slow pitch right down the middle for a strike.
"He really got me on that," Núñez said after the game. "I wasn't expecting that. One of the guys told me earlier that he has that pitch, and it was, 'Hey, get ready for that pitch, then hit a homer.' And I was like, 'OK, if he throws that.' But I didn't [swing]. I mean, it was way too slow. I will see if he throws me that one next time. Maybe I'm going to swing hard and hit it."
It was only a temporary victory for Greinke, however. Núñez advanced the runners on a ground ball, and the Tigers were able to drive in two more runs on the next two at-bats, as Greinke was pulled from the game that inning after being credited with six earned runs and 10 hits in the loss.
Still, Greinke's eephus pitch seemed to be the biggest headline of the night, as it won the praise of fans on social media.
The pitch was the slowest-tracked pitch in baseball, excluding intentional walk pitches, dating back to the start of the tracking era in 2008.
The eephus pitch was first made famous by Rip Sewell in the 1940s. He would throw the ball as much as 25 feet up in the air.
But the eephus likely received its unique name due to a misunderstanding. After throwing the pitch during a spring training game, Sewell's manager wanted to know what type of pitch it was. Outfielder Maurice Van Robays reportedly called it an "eephus."
Some believe that Van Robays meant to use the Hebrew term "efes" which means "nothing," as in "that pitch isn't anything, it is nothing." A reporter who transcribed the exchange may have been unfamiliar with the Hebrew term and gave the word his own spelling.
Ted Williams famously hit a home run off Sewell's eephus pitch in the 1946 All-Star game.
These days, an eephus pitch is most effective when it is hardly ever used, and it proved to be one of Greinke's most effective pitches of the night.