By Zack Meisel, Cody Stavenhagen and Stephen J. Nesbitt
GOODYEAR, Ariz. — A decade ago, on a dusty baseball diamond in Puerto Rico, a veteran pitcher shared with Fernando Cruz the secrets of throwing a splitter, a pitch treated like a black-market product, a dark art best learned in the shadows and deployed at one’s own risk.
Cruz was a converted infielder pitching in winter ball back home and trying to catch on with a major league organization. He couldn’t command the splitter. “Started hitting people with it,” he said. “Started bouncing it.” But he stuck with it because, when it was right, it was like sorcery. Hitters read it as a fastball and couldn’t recover as the baseball dived below their bat path.
By the time the Cincinnati Reds signed Cruz in 2022, he had wrestled the splitter into submission. Triple-A pitching coach Casey Weathers told him, “Use it, because nobody can hit it.” Cruz made his major league debut at 32. He said he owes it all to the splitter, which has generated a .085 batting average and one of the highest whiff rates of any pitch in baseball.
“I call it my gift from God,” Cruz said.
The baseball weapon known as the “Pitch of the ‘80s” became a devastating tool Roger Clemens, Curt Schilling and John Smoltz deployed to pile up strikeouts in the ‘90s. Then it all but disappeared as it earned a reputation for wrecking pitchers’ arms due to the strain it was believed to put on the pitching elbow. Some organizations forbade its use entirely.